<p>Expression Levels of miR-30c and miR-186 in Adult Patients with Membranous Glomerulonephritis and Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis</p>

Abstract

Background: Nephrotic syndrome is a common renal problem with different histopathogenesis. MicroRNAs are reported to be involved in the pathophysiology of the syndrome. The aim of this study was to study the levels of miR-30c and miR-186 in NS patients. Methods: Sixty patients with primary NS (membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN, N=30) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS, N=30)) and 24 healthy volunteers were included. Expression levels of the miR-30c and miR-186 were evaluated in plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples of adult patients with NS using real-time PCR. Moreover, an in-silico analysis was performed to understand the signaling pathways and biological procedures that may be regulated by these miRNAs. Results: In the MGN group, significantly elevated levels of miR-30c and miR-186 were observed in PBMC (P= 0.037) and plasma (P= 0.035) samples, respectively. Moreover, there was a significant increase in miR-30c levels in PBMC samples of the FSGS group when compared to healthy controls (P= 0.004). In ROC curve analysis, combined levels of the studied miRNAs could discriminate cases from controls in plasma and blood cells (AUC≥0.72, P<0.05). Conclusion: A panel of miRNAs may be potential biomarkers in plasma and PBMCs samples of NS patients with different subclasses. More investigations are needed with a large sample size to validate the diagnostic values of the reported miRNAs.

MicroRNAs as Biomarkers for Nephrotic Syndrome

“…Interestingly, plasma miR-186 levels, but not miR-125b levels, were positively correlated with degrees of proteinuria in FSGS patients [ 65 ]. Meanwhile, as described previously, Hejazian et al reported the increase in plasma miR-186 levels in MGN patients, not in FSGS patients, compared to healthy controls, indicating that it is still controversial [ 35 ].…”

“…miR-186 expression was also reported to be downregulated in MGN kidney tissues and to be associated with podocyte apoptosis [ 34 ]. On the other hand, Hejazian et al reported the increase in miR-30c levels from peripheral blood mononuclear cells and plasma miR-186 levels in MGN patients compared to FSGS patients and healthy controls [ 35 ]. Although samples analyzed in these two studies were different, further analysis might be required to make conclusion.…”

“…How about the miR-30 expression in FSGS? Hajazian et al reported no significant difference in plasma miR-30c levels between FSGS patients and healthy controls [ 35 ]. On the other hand, Wu et al reported that miR-30 family, miR-30a, miR-30b, miR-30c, miR-30d and miR-30e, in FSGS glomeruli were all downregulated compared to healthy controls [ 66 ].…”

Table 3: Correlations between the studied genes in MGN and FSGS groups.

“…Total RNAs were extracted from the plasma and PBMCs as described previously (Hejazian et al, 2020a;Hejazian et al, 2020b).…”

“…a Median (Min-Max) is presented, P-value is based on Mann-Whitney U test. described previously (Hejazian et al, 2020a;Hejazian et al, 2020b). Snord-47 and GAPDH were applied as internal controls for normalization of microRNA and mRNA levels in PBMCs, respectively.…”