Exploring microRNAs as predictive biomarkers for type 2 diabetes mellitus remission after sleeve gastrectomy: A pilot study

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate microRNAs (miRNAs) as predictive biomarkers for type 2 diabetes (T2D) remission 12 months after sleeve gastrectomy (SG). METHODS: A total of 179 serum miRNAs were profiled, and 26 clinical variables were collected from 46 patients. Two patients were later excluded because of hemolysis, and six patients with unclear remission status were set aside to evaluate the prediction models. The remaining 38 patients were included for model building. Variable selection was done using different approaches, including Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO). Prediction models were then developed using LASSO and assessed in the validation set. RESULTS: A total of 26 out of 38 patients achieved T2D remission 12 months after SG. The prediction model with only clinical variables misclassified two patients, which were correctly classified using miRNAs. Two miRNA‐only models achieved an accuracy of one but performed poorly for the validation set. The best miRNA model was a mixed model (accuracy: 0.974) containing four miRNAs (hsa‐miR‐32‐5p, hsa‐miR‐382‐5p, hsa‐miR‐1‐3p, and hsa‐miR‐21‐5p) and four clinical variables (T2D medication, sex, age, and fasting blood glucose). These miRNAs are involved in pathways related to obesity and insulin resistance. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that four serum miRNAs might be predictive biomarkers for T2D remission 12 months after SG, but further validation studies are needed.