Differences in circulating obesity-related microRNAs in Austrian and Japanese men: A two-country cohort analysis

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of obesity is higher in Western countries than in East Asian countries. It remains unknown whether microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in the pathogenesis of the ethnic difference in obesity. The purpose of this study was to determine whether expression levels of circulating obesity-associated miRNAs are different in Europeans and Asians. METHODS: The subjects were middle-aged healthy male Austrians (n = 20, mean age of 49.9 years) and Japanese (n = 20, mean age of 48.7 years). Total miRNAs in serum from each subject were analyzed using the 3D-Gene miRNA Oligo chip. miRNAs that showed significant differences between the Austrian and Japanese groups were uploaded into Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA). RESULTS: Among 16 miRNAs that were revealed to be associated with obesity in previous studies and showed expression levels that were high enough for a reasonable comparison, serum levels of 3 miRNAs displayed significant differences between the Austrian and Japanese groups: miR-125b-1-3p was significantly lower with a fold change of −2.94 and miR-20a-5p and miR-486–5p were significantly higher with fold changes of 1.73 and 2.38, respectively, in Austrians than in Japanese. In IPA including all 392 miRNAs that showed significant differences between Austrians and Japanese, three canonical pathways including leptin signaling in obesity, adipogenesis pathway and white adipose tissue browning pathway were identified as enriched pathways. CONCLUSIONS: miRNAs are thought to be involved in the ethnic difference in the prevalence of obesity, which may in part be caused by different expression levels of miR-125b-1-3p, miR-20a-5p and miR-486–5p.