Asthma diagnosis and severity assessment, can microRNAs help? A pilot study

Abstract

Background: Asthma is a heterogeneous disease comprised of numerous phenotypes that are difficult to characterize with current diagnostic tools. Circulating microRNAs (miRNA) are promising biomarkers for human diseases. In this pilot study, we determined the differential expression of 179 microRNAs (miRNAs) in serum samples between healthy individuals, mild, and severe asthmatic patients to establish differentially expressed miRNA panels detectable in sera for use as biomarkers to support asthma diagnosis and severity assessment.

Methods: MicroRNAs from serum from healthy, mild, and asthmatic individuals were isolated using miRNeasy Serum/Plasma Kit (QIAGEN) 179 miRNAs were then screened using Human Serum/Plasma Focus, miRCURY LNA miRNA Focus PCR Panel (QIAGEN) in 12 subjects divided into three groups: 4 severe asthmatics, 4 mild asthmatic and 4 healthy individuals. The levels of serum miRNAs were performed by quantitative PCR.

Results: We found two different panels of miRNAs whose expression differed (at least two-fold up/down-regulated) between sera from the three groups. One panel of miRNAs (miR-197-3p, miR-191-5p, miR-223-3p, miR-151a-3p, miR-28-3p, miR-106b-3p, miR-30b-5p, miR-133a-3p, miR-660-5p, miR-451a, miR-16-2-3p, miR-210-3p, and miR-144-3p) differentiated mild from severe asthmatics and the other (miR-193a-5p, miR-181a-5p, miR-146a-5p, and miR-16-2-3p) differentiated healthy from severe asthmatics. There were no significant changes in screened miRNAs levels between healthy and mild asthmatic groups.

Conclusion: Our data show that our suggested miRNA panels can differentiate severe asthmatics from healthy individuals and assess asthma severity.