Can circulating miR-7-1-5p, and miR-33a-5p be used as markers of T2D patients?

Abstract

Purpose

Recent evidence has indicated that miRNAs play an important role in both initiation and progression of many pathologic processes such as diabetes and can be used as an important and more sensitive tool to predict the development of the disease than the currently used biomarkers. This research aimed at comparing miR-7-5p and miR-33a-5p expression levels in the diabetics and pre-diabetics with the control group.

Methods

In this study, we compared expression of miR-7-5p and miR-33a-5p in plasma of three groups including pre-diabetic patients (n = 20), T2D patients (n = 20) and control group (n = 20), using RT-qPCR. Biochemical parameters were measured by auto-analyser. In silico analysis was performed to identify potential target genes of these miRNAs.

Results

Compared to the controls, miR-7-1-5p expression was down regulated in the pre-diabetics and the T2D patients; whereas, miR-33a-5p was expressed at higher levels in the T2D patients compared to the control group. Both miRs were correlated with glycaemic status such as FBS and HbA1c levels. The ROC analysis indicated a significant ability for miR-33a-5p in discriminating between the diabetics and the healthy individuals. In silico analysis suggests that both miRs affect biological pathways related to T2DM pathogenesis, such as MAPK, and insulin signalling pathway

Conclusion

Our results demonstrated that the miR-7-1-5p and miR-33a-5p expression levels are deregulated in the diabetics and pre-diabetics. Furthermore, miR-33a-5p showed significant ability in discriminating between diabetics and healthy individuals, suggesting a potential diagnostic use of miRNAs in type-2 diabetes detection.

Keywords:

• Type-2 diabetes
• miR-7-5p
• miR-33a-5p
• microRNAs
• Biomarker

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the participants in this study.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by ShahidBeheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran. The authors thank Shahid Beheshti Deputy of Research Affairs for funding this project.