Affiliations 

  • 1 Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathophysiology, School of Medicine, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China; Departmant of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325027, China
  • 2 Ningbo Eye Hospital, Minan Road 855, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China
  • 3 Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 4 Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathophysiology, School of Medicine, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China
  • 5 Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathophysiology, School of Medicine, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China. Electronic address: hanliyuan@nbu.edu.cn
  • 6 Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathophysiology, School of Medicine, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China. Electronic address: duanshiwei@nbu.edu.cn
Clin Chim Acta, 2020 Feb;501:147-153.
PMID: 31678272 DOI: 10.1016/j.cca.2019.10.036

Abstract

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of vision loss among older adults. The goal of this case-control study was to identify circulating miRNAs for the diagnosis of DR. The miRNeasy Serum/Plasma Kit was used to extract serum miRNAs. The μParaflo™ MicroRNA microarray was used to detect the expression levels of the miRNAs. The miRWalk algorithm was applied to predict the target genes of the miRNAs, which were further confirmed by the dual luciferase reporter gene system in HEK293T cells. A microarray was performed between 5 DR cases and 5 age-, sex-, body mass index-, and duration of diabetes-matched type 2 diabetic (T2DM) controls. The quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction technique was used to validate the differentially expressed circulating miRNAs in 45 DR cases and 45 well-matched controls. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the performance of the circulating miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers for DR. Our microarray analysis screened out miR-2116-5p and miR-3197 as significantly up-regulated in DR cases compared with the controls. Furthermore, two miRNAs were validated in the 45 DR cases and 45 controls. The ROC analysis suggested that both miR-3197 and miR-2116-5p distinguished DR cases from controls. An additional dual-luciferase reporter gene assay confirmed that notch homolog 2 (NOTCH2) was the target gene of miR-2116-5p. Both miR-3197 and miR-2116-5p were identified as promising diagnostic biomarkers for DR. Future research is still needed to explore the molecular mechanisms of miR-3197 and miR-2116-5p in the pathogenesis of DR.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.