Plasma miR‐21 as a potential predictor in prediabetic individuals with a positive family history of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a heritable metabolic perturbation, rapidly growing across the world. Primary recognition of susceptible individuals with a family history of type 2 diabetes (FHD) in the prediabetes stage could delay the onset of T2DM or reduce complications induced by diabetes. This study aims to evaluate the expression levels of miR‐21, miR‐126 as noninvasive predictive biomarkers in individuals with genetic predisposition and investigate the correlation of miRNAs and cardiometabolic risk factors. Our study demonstrated that miR‐21 expression has a notable elevate in both groups of T2DM and pre‐T2DM. miR‐21 expression was distinguished in the pre‐T2DM and T2DM from the nondiabetic individuals by ROC curve analysis with AUC of 0.77 (95% CI 0.65–0.90; p = 0.0004) and AUC of 0.78 (95% CI 0.64–0.92; p = 0.0042), respectively. The relative gene expression of miR‐126 was nearly equal among groups. miR‐21 expression was positively associated with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), fasting blood sugar (FBS), and triglyceride (TG) and might have diagnostic value for T2DM and pre‐T2DM. This study has revealed that the expression level of miR‐21 can be considered as a non‐invasive and rapid tool for distinguishing pre‐T2DM and T2DM counterparts from healthy individuals.