HDL-enriched miR-30a-5p is associated with HDL-cholesterol levels and glucose metabolism in healthy men and women

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the associations between high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-enriched miRNAs and the cardiometabolic profile of healthy men and women. Patients & methods: miRNAs were quantified using next-generation sequencing of miRNAs extracted from purified HDL and plasma from 17 healthy men and women couples. Results: Among the HDL-enriched miRNAs, miR-30a-5p correlated positively with HDL-cholesterol levels, whereas miR-144-5p and miR-30a-5p were negatively associated with fasting insulin levels and Homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance index. Overall, miR-30a-5p, miR-150-5p and sex contributed to 45% of HDL-cholesterol variance. A model containing only miR-30a-5p, age and sex explained 41% of fasting glucose variance. Conclusion: HDL-enriched miRNAs, notably miR-30a-5p, are associated with cardiometabolic markers. These miRNAs could play a role in HDL’s protective functions, particularly regarding glucose-insulin homeostasis.

Keywords::

• cardiometabolic health
• circulating miRNA
• glucose-insulin homeostasis
• HDL
• lipid-lipoprotein metabolism
• lipoproteins
• miRNAs
• next-generation sequencing

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/epi-2020-0456

Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to AA Després and S Pouliot for their contribution to the UNISON cohort phenotyping and blood sampling, to B Lamarche for sharing his expertise in lipoprotein isolation and to the McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre staff for their work in libraries quality control and sequencing.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This research was funded by the Réseau de Recherche en Santé Cardiométabolique, Diabète et Obésité (CMDO) of the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS), the Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CRCHUS), the Fondation de ma vie of the Centre Intégré Universitaire de Santé et de Services Sociaux (CIUSSS) du Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean – Hôpital de Chicoutimi and the ECOGENE-21 Biocluster Clinical Research Center (principal investigator: D Gaudet, Université de Montréal). L Bouchard and BJ Arsenault are research scholars from the FRQS. AA Clément, V Desgagné and C Légaré were recipients of a doctoral research award from FRQS and SP Guay was the recipient of a doctoral research award from the Canadian Institutes for Health and Research (CIHR). L Bouchard and F Corbin are members of the FRQS – funded Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.