Correlation between microRNA and rheumatoid arthritis activity / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the correlation between miRNAs and clinical manifestations, laboratory examinations, serum cytokines and disease activity scores in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods Thirty-eightnewly diagnosed RA patients who visited the department of Rheumatology of Inner Mongolia Medical Affiliated Hospital from October 2015 to December 2015 were enrolled in the study. Thirty-eight age and sex matched healthy volunteers were enrolled as the control group. MiR-125b, miR-21, miR-155, miR-346, miR-223, miR-146a were tested by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR). Datawere collected at the baseline and 3 weeks after the study. Solutions statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) 20.0 version was usedfor statistical analysis. Data were analyzed using t test or χ2 test and Pearson test was used for correlation analysis.Levene method was used to test homogeneity of variance. Results MiR-125b (1.55±0.24), miR-155 (3.1±0.5), miR-346 (650±51), miR-223-3p (1.26±0.18), miR-146a-5p (2.39±0.25) levels in the RA group were significantly higher than those in the healthy control group at the baseline (0.84±0.16, 1.4±0.5, 304±101, 0.58±0.11, 1.09±0.27; t=15.36, 18.60, 18.77, 19.67, 21.66; P<0.05). MiR-21-5p (0.91±0.09) was lower than the control group (1.51±0.21; t=-16.029, P<0.05), while miR-146a-3p, miR-21-3p, miR-223-5p showed no difference between the two groups. MiR-155 and miR-146a was positively correlated with RA disease activity scores (P<0.05). MiR-21 was negatively correlated with disease activity scores and serum cytokines including IL-1β, IL-6, IL-17a, IL-23 and Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α. After 3 months treatment, tenderness joint count, swelling joint count, laboratory tests and imaging examination were improved (P<0.05), while miRNAslevels in RA were decreased significantly respectively (P<0.05), mir-21 was increased significantly. Conclusion MiR-125b, miR-21, miR-155, miR-346, miR-223, miR-146a in RA are characteristically expressed in RA and related with the disease activity and treatment response. MiRNAs may hold a great promise as the diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in RA.