The regulatory role of microRNAs in common eye diseases: A brief review Javier A. Benavides-Aguilar 1 , Jonathan I. Morales-Rodríguez 1† , Héctor Ambriz-González 1† , Luis M. Ruiz-Manriquez 1,2 , Antara Banerjee 3 , Surajit Pathak 3 *, Asim K. Duttaroy 4 * and Sujay Paul 1 * 1 Tecnológico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences, Queretaro, Mexico, 2 Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Medicine and Health Science, Monterrey, Mexico, 3 Chettinad Academy of Research and Education (CARE), Chettinad Hospital and Research Institute (CHRI), Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Chennai, India, 4 Department of Nutrition, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are highly conserved, small non-coding RNA molecules (~21 nucleotides) that regulate numerous biological processes, including developmental timing, hematopoiesis, organogenesis, apoptosis, cell differentiation, and proliferation either by mRNA degradation or translation repression. Since eye physiology requires a perfect orchestration of complex regulatory networks, an altered expression of key regulatory molecules such as miRNAs potentially leads to numerous eye disorders. In recent years, comprehensive progress has been made in demonstrating the precise roles of miRNAs, emphasizing their potential use in diagnostic and therapeutic purposes of chronic human diseases. Thus, this review explicitly illustrates the regulatory roles of miRNAs in four common eye disorders, such as cataract, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and uveitis, and their application in disease management. KEYWORDS microRNA, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, uveitis 1 Introduction The eyes are the primary organs for vision and are composed of different structures. The eyeballs in orbit comprise up to 20% of the orbital volume, whereas the remaining 80% is occupied by extraocular muscles, fat, nerves, blood vessels, fascia, and the lacrimal gland (Galloway et al., 2016). Degenerative modifications in the structure of the eyes are currently a relevant cause of blindness (Galloway et al., 2016). Among eye diseases, cataracts, glaucoma, and corneal opacities are the most common (World Health Organization, 2022). A cataract is the leading cause of reversible blindness, whose prevalence is higher in lower socioeconomic status since the most effective treatment option, surgical removal of the lens usually unaffordable to most of the population (Lam et al., 2015). Similarly, glaucoma, a chronic optic nerve disorder, often leads to blindness if it remains untreated; while the most conventional treatment, laser therapy, might lead to complications of the pupil (Schuster et al., 2020). Corneal opacities, such as macular degeneration and uveitis, are a group of disorders that impede the cornea’s normal functioning of light transmission; treatments such as corneal transplantation can be performed; nevertheless, this can involve risks and delayed rehabilitation (Dohlman et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2019). Currently, over 65 million people worldwide are suffering from cataracts, whereas nearly 80, 196, and 2.3 million people have OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Qz Zhou, National University of Singapore, Singapore REVIEWED BY Shuai Zhang, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, China Ufuk Degirmenci, LifeStrands Genomics, Singapore *CORRESPONDENCE Surajit Pathak, surajit.pathak@gmail.com Asim K. Duttaroy, a.k.duttaroy@medisin.uio.no Sujay Paul, spaul@tec.mx † These authors have contributed equally to this work SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to RNA, a section of the journal Frontiers in Genetics RECEIVED 27 January 2023 ACCEPTED 20 March 2023 PUBLISHED 29 March 2023 CITATION Benavides-Aguilar JA, Morales-Rodríguez JI, Ambriz-González H, Ruiz-Manriquez LM, Banerjee A, Pathak S, Duttaroy AK and Paul S (2023), The regulatory role of microRNAs in common eye diseases: A brief review. Front. Genet. 14:1152110. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1152110 COPYRIGHT © 2023 Benavides-Aguilar, Morales- Rodríguez, Ambriz-González, Ruiz- Manriquez, Banerjee, Pathak, Duttaroy and Paul. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Frontiers in Genetics frontiersin.org 01 TYPE Mini Review PUBLISHED 29 March 2023 DOI 10.3389/fgene.2023.1152110