ABSTRACT
Objective To study the expression levels of microRNA (miR)-16 and miR-146a in rat lungs of decompres-sion sickness (DCS) caused by fast buoyancy ascent escape or diving .Methods At 0.5 h after fast buoyancy ascent es-cape or diving, the pathological changes in rat lungs and expression levels of miR-16,and miR-146a were detected by re-verse transcription-quantitive polymerase chain reaction and compared with normal control group .Results The pathological characteristics of lungs in two DCS groups were tissue damage .At 0.5 h after DCS caused by fast buoyancy ascent escape , the lung tissue expression levels of miR-16 and miR-146a did not significantly change compared with normal control and diving DCS groups ,but the rat lung tissue expression level of miR-146 a in diving DCS group was obviously increased , com-pared with normal control group .Conclusion miR-146a may play a role in post-transcriptional regulation in the process of diving DCS .