Circulatory Endothelin 1-Regulating RNAs Panel: Promising Biomarkers for Non-Invasive NAFLD/NASH Diagnosis and Stratification: Clinical and Molecular Pilot Study

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the major seeds of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. There is no convenient reliable non-invasive early diagnostic tool available for NAFLD/NASH diagnosis and stratification. Recently, the role of cytosolic sensor, stimulator of interferon genes (STING) signaling pathway in pathogenesis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has been evidenced in research. We have selected EDN1/TNF/MAPK3/EP300/hsa-miR-6888-5p/lncRNA RABGAP1L-DT-206 RNA panel from bioinformatics microarrays databases related to STING pathway and NAFLD/NASH pathogenesis. We have used reverse-transcriptase real-time polymerase chain reaction to assess the expression of the serum RNAs panel in NAFLD/NASH without suspicion of advanced fibrosis, NAFLD/with NASH patients with suspicion of advanced fibrosis and controls. Additionally, we have assessed the diagnostic performance of the Ribonucleic acid (RNA) panel. We have detected upregulation of the EDN1 regulating RNAs panel expression in NAFLD/NASH cases compared to healthy controls. We concluded that this circulatory RNA panel could enable us to discriminate NAFLD/NASH cases from controls, and also NAFLD/NASH cases (F1, F2) from advanced fibrosis stages (F3, F4).