Prognostic significance of serum miR-18a-5p in severe COVID-19 Egyptian patients

BACKGROUND: The identification of miRNAs as well as characterization of miRNA-mRNA interactions in SARS-CoV-2 infection is important to understand their role in disease pathogenesis. Therefore the aim of the present study was to measure the expression levels of hsa-mir-18a-5p in the sera of severe COVID-19 Egyptian patients admitted to ICU to investigate its roles in the pathogenesis and severity of COVID-19 disease. METHODS: A total of 180 unvaccinated severe COVID-19 patients were enrolled in our study. Besides the routine laboratory work, the expression level of hsa-mir-18a-5p was done using reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RTqPCR) technique. Also, target genes of hsa-mir-18a-5p were explored by using online bioinformatics databases. RESULTS: The expression level of hsa-mir-18a-5p decreased in nonsurvival severe COVID-19 patients (0.38 ± 0.26) when compared to the survival ones (0.84 ± 0.23). While as a prognostic tool for the prediction of bad prognosis and mortality among severe COVID-19 patients, our results showed that the serum hsa-mir-18a-5p expression level is a good sensitive and specific marker. By using bioinformatics tools, our results revealed that the decreased hsa-mir-18a-5p expression level may have a crucial role in COVID-19 pathogenesis and severity through decreased immunological responses (interpreted as lymphopenia) or increased inflammation (interpreted as increased serum levels of IL-6, CRP, LDH). CONCLUSION: Taken together, the decreased expression level of hsa-mir-18a-5p could be a bad prognostic marker and therapeutic overexpression of hsa-mir-18a-5p could be a novel approach in the treatment of COVID-19 disease.