Serum miR-206 and miR-132 as Potential Circulating Biomarkers for Mild Cognitive Impairment

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small, non-coding RNA molecules with gene regulatory functions, have emerged to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases. Recently, circulating miRNAs have been reported as potential biomarkers for various pathologic conditions. The present study was performed to investigate the potential role of circulating miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We collected 66 patients with MCI and 76 normal controls from our previous cross-sectional cohort study. Seven miRNAs (miR-206, miR-132, miR-193b, miR-130b, miR-20a, miR-296, and miR-329) related to Alzheimer's disease (AD) were detected in serum using a quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) method. Each miRNA's diagnostic performance was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curves and the areas under curves (AUC) analysis. The levels of miR-206 and miR-132 in MCI patients' serum were significantly elevated compared to normal controls. Combining detection of miR-206 and miR-132 achieved the highest AUC of 0.981, followed by test of miR-206 (AUC = 0.880) and miR-132 (AUC = 0.912) separately. Importantly, miR-206 and miR-132 were respectively correlated with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score in MCI patients. These results preliminarily indicated that circulating miR-206 and miR-132 as novel miRNAs upregulated in MCI patient were potential biomarkers for diagnosis of MCI.

Risk Factors Associated with Mild Cognitive Impairment аmong Apparently Healthy People and the Role of MicroRNAs

“…These results preliminarily indicated that miRNA-132 might be a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of MCI. A significantly upregulated expression of miRNA-132 was reported among patients with MCI (n = 66) in comparison to their agematched controls (n = 76) [61]. Moreover, Weinberg et al, [62] assessed miRNA 132 in the frontal and inferior temporal cortex of postmortem brains of patients with MCI and normal individuals and found that miR 132 was significantly down-regulated in MCI.…”

Profile of 6 microRNA in blood plasma distinguish early stage Alzheimer’s disease patients from non-demented subjects

“…In fact, there is a discrepancy in existing data of blood-based miRNAs in MCI patients because MCI was either considered as a dementia type/stage different than AD [22, 23, 39, 43] or MCI was assumed to represent early AD, and was included in the analysis together with probable AD as one disease group [20, 21]. Some other authors attempted to stratify the MCI group according to dementia psychological assays and PIB-PET brain imaging, but the classification omitted CSF markers and thus cannot be referred to such biochemical measures [41, 68–70]. To avoid such problems, our study involved only those patients diagnosed with MCI, in which analysis of AD biomarkers in CSF indicated likelihood of early AD.…”

Upregulation of microRNA-206 enhances lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation and release of amyloid-β by targeting insulin-like growth factor 1 in microglia

“…In animal models of AD, previous studies have reported an increased expression of miR-206 in brain tissue, CSF and plasma of embryonic amyloid precursor protein (APP)/presenilin 1 transgenic mice (23) and Tg2576 mice (24). Furthermore, upregulation of miR-206 has been detected in serum from patients with mild cognitive impairment (25), and in the temporal cortex of human AD brains (24). These results indicated that upregulation of miR-206 in the peripheral circulation truly reflects the alterations in the AD brain.…”