Clinical and Translational Research
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 7, 2021; 27(45): 7801-7812
Published online Dec 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i45.7801
MicroRNAs expression influence in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease: A pilot study for the identification of diagnostic biomarkers
Ana Elisa Valencise Quaglio, Felipe Jose Santaella, Maria Aparecida Marchesan Rodrigues, Ligia Yukie Sassaki, Luiz Claudio Di Stasi
Ana Elisa Valencise Quaglio, Luiz Claudio Di Stasi, Laboratory of Phytomedicines, Pharmacology and Biotechnology (PhytoPharmaTec), Department of Biophysics and Pharmacology, São Paulo State University (Unesp), Institute of Biosciences, Botucatu 18618-689, São Paulo, Brazil
Felipe Jose Santaella, Maria Aparecida Marchesan Rodrigues, Department of Pathology, Botucatu Medical School, Sao Paulo State University (Unesp), Botucatu 18618-687, São Paulo, Brazil
Ligia Yukie Sassaki, Department of Internal Medicine, Botucatu Medical School, São Paulo State University (Unesp), Botucatu 18618-687, São Paulo, Brazil
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this manuscript; Quaglio AEV, Rodrigues AMM, Sassaki LY and Di Stasi LC contributed to the conception of the study; Quaglio AEV and Santaella FJ did the acquisition; Di Stasi LC revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content and submitted the final approval version; all authors contributed to the interpretation of data, drafting of the article and approved the final version of the article.
Supported by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grants, No. 2017/03959-8 and No. 2015/15267-8.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Botucatu Medical School Research Ethics Committee, No. 71379417.2.0000.5411.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ana Elisa Valencise Quaglio, PhD, Professor, Research Scientist, Laboratory of Phytomedicines, Pharmacology and Biotechnology (PhytoPharmaTec), Department of Biophysics and Pharmacology, São Paulo State University (Unesp), Institute of Biosciences, R. Prof. Dr. Antônio Celso Wagner Zanin, 250-Distrito de Rubião Junior, Botucatu 18618-689, São Paulo, Brazil. anaequaglio@hotmail.com
Received: April 28, 2021
Peer-review started: April 28, 2021
First decision: June 13, 2021
Revised: June 14, 2021
Accepted: November 20, 2021
Article in press: November 20, 2021
Published online: December 7, 2021
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic and relapsing disorder of the gastrointestinal tract including two distinct phenotypes, ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). IBD pathophysiological mechanisms are unclear.

Research motivation

IBD affects 6 to 8 million people worldwide and the incremental increase in the incidence and prevalence globally is indicative of the need for population-based genetic studies including microRNAs (miRNAs) expression profiles.

Research objectives

The present study aimed to investigate the miRNA expression patterns in tissue of treatment-naïve CD and UC patients and the potential pathophysiological contributions of differentially expressed (DE) miRNA in IBD.

Research methods

A total of 20 formalin-fixed paraffin embedded colonic samples were used in a TaqMan™ Array Human MicroRNA (Applied Biosystems™) platform aiming to analyze 754 miRNAs. After that, targets of DE-miRNAs were predicted using miRNa data integration portal (miRDIP) and the miRNA target interaction database (miRTarBase).

Research results

A total of 643 miRNAs were found to be expressed in both diseases but only 13 miRNAs were significantly different between the CD and UC patients (P ≤ 0.05; fold-change > 1). The miRNAs whose expression levels were significantly lower in UC patients than in CD patients (miR-192-3p/5p, miR-378a-3p/5p and miR-429) were enriched in signaling pathways that were mostly correlated with cancer-related processes and respective biomarkers.

Research conclusions

Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease presented distinct patterns of miRNA expression that could be useful as new pharmacological targets besides acts as biomarkers for UC-associated CRC.

Research perspectives

New studies should be done with the DE-miRNAs using a large number of patients aiming to confirm the differences found in this pilot study. With this confirmation, the DE-miRNAs will be able to be used as pharmacological targets and differential markers for each disease.