Evaluating changes in the expression of BCL-2 gene, lncRNA SRA, and miR-361-3p in unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss

Abstract

Unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) composed almost half of all diagnosed miscarriage cases. As the apoptosis pathway is involved in the pregnancy process the present investigation aimed to assess the differential expression of the BCL-2 gene, SRA lncRNA, miR-361-3p in unexplained RPL patients. In this study, RNA was isolated from 50 blood samples of people with a history of RPL, and 50 blood samples of people with healthy fertility. After cDNA synthesis from these samples, alterations in the expression levels of the above-mentioned genes were examined by Real-Time PCR. Our results showed that the expression of BCL-2 and lncRNA SRA was significantly higher in the blood samples of RPL patients than in controls, while the expression of miR-361-3p was significantly downregulated. Besides, there were significant correlations between the changes in the expression of lncRNA SRA and miR-361-3p with BCL-2, in positive and negative directions, respectively. Also, miR-361-3p presented as a good diagnostic marker with the highest AUC value to discriminate between RPL and the healthy control subjects. These results proposed that ncRNAs may have a significant role in the regulation of apoptosis relates genes expression in RPL.

Keywords:

• Apoptosis
• expression analysis
• non-coding RNA
• recurrent pregnancy loss
• BCL-2
• miR-361-3p

Conflict of interest

The authors had no conflict of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The present work was funded by the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences [Grant No. 18342].