Association of recurrent venous thromboembolism and circulating microRNAs

BACKGROUND: Patients with unprovoked first venous thromboembolism (VTE) are at a high risk of recurrence. Although circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to be associated with VTE and are markers of hypercoagulability, this study is the first to examine whether circulating miRNAs are associated with the risk of VTE recurrence. RESULTS: A nested case-control study design was used where plasma samples were obtained from 78 patients with unprovoked VTE from the Malmö Thrombophilia Study (MATS). A total of 39 VTE patients with recurrent VTE (cases) were matched with 39 VTE patients without recurrent VTE (controls) defined by age and sex (MATS population). Plasma levels of 179 different miRNAs were evaluated in the 78 samples (after anticoagulant treatment was stopped) using qPCR. A total of 110 miRNAs were detected in all samples. Among those, 12 miRNAs (miR-15b-5p, miR-106a-5p, miR-197-3p, miR-652-3p, miR-361-5p, miR-222-3p, miR-26b-5p, miR-532-5p, miR-27b-3p, miR-21-5p, miR-103a-3p, and miR-30c-5p) were found to be associated with recurrent VTE after multiple correction test and conditional logistic regression analysis. A further analysis showed that miR-15b-5p, miR-197-3p, miR-27b-3p, and miR-30c-5p exhibited a trend over time, with a larger difference in miRNA levels between cases and controls for earlier recurrence. Of these 12 miRNAs, 8 miRNAs significantly correlated with circulating transforming growth factor β1/2 (TGFβ1/2). Three of them correlated with platelet count. CONCLUSION: We have identified 12 plasma miRNAs that may have the potential to serve as novel, non-invasive predictive biomarkers for VTE recurrence. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13148-019-0627-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.