Circulating miRNA expression profile and bioinformatics analysis in patients with occult hepatitis B virus infection

Abstract

Emerging suggest that microRNAs (miRNAs) play vital roles in the occurrence and development of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infectious disease. However, miRNAs in occult hepatitis B virus infection (OBI), a special stage of HBV infection, remain largely unknown. Herein, we conducted this study to identify differentially expressed miRNAs and then to investigate the potential roles of these miRNAs in OBI. Plasma miRNA expression profiles of three OBI patients and three healthy controls were analyzed with high through‐put miRNA sequencing technology. Altered expression of miRNAs was further confirmed with reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR). Finally, bioinformatics analysis was conducted to investigate the involved pathways and target genes for these differentially expressed miRNAs. Totally, 32 differentially expressed miRNAs were identified between OBI and healthy controls by miRNA sequencing (fold change ≥ 1.5, P < .1, and counts per million reads ≥ 1), including 16 downregulated and 16 upregulated miRNAs. Differential expression of hsa‐miR‐486‐5p, ‐25‐3p, and ‐92a‐3p and ‐1‐3p was further validated by qRT‐PCR analysis, which was consistent with miRNA sequencing analysis. Moreover, these four miRNAs might distinguish OBI from HCs efficiently. Bioinformatics analyses indicated that the differentially expressed miRNAs were primarily involved in various biological processes related to gene expression and transcription, cell development and metabolism, protein modification and kinase activity regulation, as well as multiple signaling pathways such as PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. This study provided a global view of miRNA expression in plasma from OBI patients. These differentially expressed miRNAs might play important roles in the development of OBI, which provided intriguing insights into the screening and molecular mechanism of OBI.

Occult hepatitis B — the result of the host immune response interaction with different genomic expressions of the virus

“…In a more recent study, miRNAs, including hsa-miR-25-3p, -486-5p, -92a-3p, and -1-3p, showed the ability to distinguish OBI from healthy controls efficiently, with an area under the curve value of 0.874, 0.776, 0.886, and 0.807, respectively. In total, 32 differentially expressed miRNAs were identified between OBI and the healthy controls by miRNA sequencing[ 86 ]. Compared with the case of the healthy controls, plasma miR-451a and miR-340-3p were significantly upregulated in OBI, making the authors propose these markers for distinguishing OBI from healthy donors[ 86 ].…”

“…In total, 32 differentially expressed miRNAs were identified between OBI and the healthy controls by miRNA sequencing[ 86 ]. Compared with the case of the healthy controls, plasma miR-451a and miR-340-3p were significantly upregulated in OBI, making the authors propose these markers for distinguishing OBI from healthy donors[ 86 ].…”

Occult hepatitis B virus infection in patients with chronic liver disease of different etiology in a Brazilian referral center: comparison of two different hepatitis B virus deoxyribonucleic acid amplification protocols: a cross-sectional study

“…[7][8][9][10][11][12] Moreover, there is evidence that microRNAs (miRNAs) are differentially expressed in patients with OBI compared to healthy controls. 13 I MD, MSc. Physician, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Hospital das Clínicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte (MG), Brazil.…”

Identification and characterization of lncRNA AP000253 in occult hepatitis B virus infection

“…Up to now, several lncRNA profiles of different stages of chronic HBV infection have been reported [ 15 – 19 ], and functional and mechanism studies further reveal that abnormally expressed lncRNAs might play important roles in the development of HBV infection, such as HULC [ 19 , 20 ], PCNAP1 [ 21 ], HOTTIP [ 22 ], lncRNA#32 [ 23 ], HOTAIR [ 24 ] and HEIH [ 19 ]. However, to our knowledge, unlike miRNAs [ 25 – 27 ], the lncRNA expression in OBI has been not yet investigated.…”