Predisposition of six well-characterized microRNAs to syndesmophytes among Chinese patients with ankylosing spondylitis

Abstract

Objectives: We quantified the expression of six well-characterized microRNAs (miRNAs) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells to see whether they can predispose to syndesmophytes in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving 46 AS patients (23/23 with/without syndesmophytes) and 22 healthy controls. miRNAs expression was quantified by real-time PCR.

Results: Six examined miRNAs were comparably expressed between AS patients without syndesmophytes and healthy controls (p > .05). Relative to AS patients without syndesmophytes, patients with syndesmophytes had significantly higher levels of miR-29a, miR-335-5p, miR-27a and let-7i (p = .001, .002, .013 and .029, respectively). Nine significant contributors associated with syndesmophytes in AS, including smoking, AS duration, human leukocyte antigen B27, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, miR-335-5p, miR-27a, miR-218 and sacroiliitis, were identified. The addition of miR-335-5p, miR-27a and miR-218 can significantly improve the accuracy of baseline risk factors. Based on the nine significant contributors, a nomogram was constructed, with good prediction accuracy (C-index: 0.86, p < .001).

Conclusion: We provide evidence for the predisposition of miR-335-5p, miR-27a and miR-218 to syndesmophytes in AS patients, indicating a contributory role of miRNAs in the pathogenesis of syndesmophytes. Further validation is warranted.

Keywords:

• Ankylosing spondylitis
• syndesmophyte
• MicroRNA
• risk
• predisposition

Conflict of interest

None.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during this current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant no: 81403378] and the China-Japan Friendship Hospital Youth Science and Technology Excellence Project [grant no: 2014-QNYC-B-02].