Long non-coding RNA MALAT1 and microRNA-499a expression profiles in diabetic ESRD patients undergoing dialysis: a preliminary cross-sectional analysis

Abstract

Background: Circulating non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been implicated in health and disease. This study aimed to evaluate the serum expression profile of microRNA-499a (miR-499a) and its selected bioinformatically predicted partner long-ncRNA MALAT1 (metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1) in diabetes-related end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients and to correlate the expressions with the patients' clinicolaboratory data.

Subjects and methods: Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction was applied in diabetics with and without ESRD (n = 90 for each).

Results: Serum MALAT1 expression levels were increased in the ESRD group relative to diabetics without ESRD with median (quartile) values of 10.5 (1.41–126.7) (p < .001). However, miR-499a levels were decreased in more than half of ESRD patients with a median of 0.96 (0.13–3.14). Both MALAT1 and miR-499a expression levels were inversely correlated in the ESRD patient-group.

Conclusions: MALAT1 up-regulation and miR-499 down-regulation might be involved in diabetic nephropathy-related ESRD pathogenesis. Functional validation studies are warranted to confirm the MALAT1/miR-499a partnership.

Keywords:

• End-stage renal disease
• MALAT1
• miR-499a
• qRT-PCR
• gene expression

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the participants who agree to join the current study. The authors also thank all staff and workers of the “Nephrology Center of Mohammed bin Saud Al-Kabeer for Renal Dialysis” at the Arar Central Hospital, Northern Border Area, Saudia Arabia, for their imminent cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.