Chien Hung-Yu, Lee Tai-Ping, Chen Chang-Yi, Chiu Yen-Hui, Lin Yi-Chun, Lee Lon-Shyong, Li Wan-Chun
Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Taipei City Hospital, Ren-Ai Branch, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Department of Biotechnology and Laboratory Science in Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; Department of Education and Research, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
J Chin Med Assoc. 2015 Apr;78(4):204-11. doi: 10.1016/j.jcma.2014.11.002. Epub 2014 Dec 16.
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a global health care issue resulting from hyperglycemia-mediated life-threatening complications. Although the use of glucose-lowering agents is routinely practiced, high dependence on medication leads to poor quality of life for DM patients. While it is still not feasible to precisely determine the critical timing when DM is truly established, perhaps the best way to reduce DM-associated mortality is to prevent it. To this end, an exploration of prognostic molecules sensitive enough to detect early physiological alteration at the initiating stage would be required. Recently discovered small noncoding molecules, microRNAs (miRs), in body fluid seem promising to be utilized as a biomarker to monitor DM initiation and progression, as it is believed that expression of circulating miRs reflects disease pathology. Current DM-related miRs were often referred to miRs differentially expressed in insulin target organs (liver, muscle, and adipose tissues) or circulating blood (peripheral blood) in diabetic patients compared to their control counterparts, although these miRs could merely be resultant nucleotides from DM-induced organ impairment instead of the indicators of onset/progression of DM. In the current review, studies showing circulating miRs associated with type 2 DM and its complications are summarized, and future scope of using miRs as biomarkers for disease prognosis/diagnosis is also emphasized.
糖尿病（DM）是一个全球性的医疗保健问题，由高血糖介导的危及生命的并发症所致。尽管常规使用降糖药物，但对药物的高度依赖导致糖尿病患者生活质量较差。虽然精确确定糖尿病真正发病的确切关键时间仍然不可行，但降低糖尿病相关死亡率的最佳方法或许是预防糖尿病。为此，需要探索足够敏感以检测起始阶段早期生理改变的预后分子。最近在体液中发现的小非编码分子——微小RNA（miRs），似乎有望用作监测糖尿病发病和进展的生物标志物，因为人们认为循环miRs的表达反映了疾病病理。目前与糖尿病相关的miRs通常是指与对照相比，糖尿病患者胰岛素靶器官（肝脏、肌肉和脂肪组织）或循环血液（外周血）中差异表达的miRs，尽管这些miRs可能仅仅是糖尿病诱导的器官损伤产生的核苷酸，而非糖尿病发病/进展的指标。在本综述中，总结了显示循环miRs与2型糖尿病及其并发症相关的研究，并强调了将miRs用作疾病预后/诊断生物标志物的未来前景。
