Preliminary Study On Serum MicroRNAs As Biological Markers For Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Objective:To detect the expression levels of serum microRNAs in the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and find out the potential candidate microRNAs for auxiliary diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus.Material and methods:Total RNA was extracted using TRIzol LS. MicroRNAs with differential expression were detected by exiqon microRNAs chips and the results were confirmed in35patients with systemic Lupus erythematosus and25healthy controls by realtime PCR.Results:Serum microRNA chip results were analyzed by GenePix Pro6.0software. Compared with healthy controls,330microRNAs with differential expression were found in serum of patients with SLE, including139up-regulated microRNAs and191down-regulated microRNAs. The top10of up-regulated microRNAs in SLE serum contain hsa-miR-4708-3p, hsa-miR-5100, hsa-miR-3960, hsa-miR-4722-3p, hsa-miR-5701, hsa-miR-371b-5p, hsa-miR-4467, hsa-miR-3940-5p,hsa-miR-4269, hsa-miR-4454; the top of down-regulated microRNA in SLE serum contain hsa-miR-224-5p, hsa-miR-493-3p, hsa-miR-4503, hsa-miR-323b-3p, hsa-miR-1246, hsa-miR-4325, hsa-miR-107, hsa-miR-323a-3p, hsa-miR-21-5P, hsa-miR-1285-3p. Furthermore, we detected several microRNAs, which were identified with differential expression in SLE serum by realtime PCR. The results shows that hsa-miR-4708-3P, hsa-miR-5100and hsa-miR-371b-5P were up-regulated significantly, hsa-miR-1246, hsa-miR-4325and hsa-miR-107were down-regulated significantly (P<0.01), all of which is concordance with the results of microarray.Conclusion:Compared with healthy controls, there are a lot of microRNAs with abnormal expression in SLE serum, which may be the potiential biological markers for auxiliary diagnosis of SLE.17charts,14tables,24references.