Screening for microRNA-based diagnostic markers in hepatic alveolar echinococcosis

This study aims to screen differentially expressed host miRNAs that could be used as diagnostic markers for liver alveolar echinococcosis (LAE). Differentially expressed miRNAs were first screened by miRNA microarray in liver tissues from2 LAE patients and normal liver tissues from 3 LAE patients, followed by qRT-PCR validation in 15 LAE tissues and 15 normal tissues. Target genes of differentially expressed miRNAs were predicted using Targetscan, PITA and microRNAorg database, and the overlapped predicted target genes were analyzed by GO and KEGG. The hsa-miR-1237-3p, hsa-miR-33b-3p, and hsa-miR-483-3p were up-regulated whereas the hsa-miR-4306 was down-regulated in LAE tissues compared with normal controls (P < .05). The expression change of miR-483-3p was further confirmed in both liver tissues and plasma. Several predicted targets of miR-1237-3p, miR-4306, and miR-483-3p were related to DNA-dependent transcriptional regulation, developmental regulation of multicellular organisms, and biological functions such as cellular immune responses (T cell proliferation). The overlapped predicted target genes of the 4 differentially expressed miRNAs were enriched in mRNA surveillance, cancer signaling pathway, intestinal immune network, and other signal pathways. Our results indicate that miR-483-3p is a potential marker for the diagnosis of LAE, and targets of this miRNA could be the focus of further studies.