Abstract：Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with the disturbance of lipid metabolism in the body cells, that is, the imbalance between lipid acquisition and removal in liver cells leads to the accumulation of triglycerides (TG) in the cytoplasm. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs with a length of about 22 nucleotide fragments, which regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level through either translation inhibition or degradation/cleavage of mRNA. More and more evidences show that miRNAs are closely related to the occurrence and development of NAFLD, and miRNAs are widely involved in lipid synthesis and metabolism. In this review, the mechanism of miRNAs regulating hepatic steatosis in NAFLD from the perspective of the regulation of lipid metabolism pathways by miRNAs were investigated and summarized, and the potential use of miRNAs as biomarkers and/or therapeutic targets for NAFLD was briefly analyzed.
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