Zhong Bitao, Cui Chunmei, Cui Qinghua
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Noncoding RNA Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Vascular Homeostasis and Remodeling, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, 38 Xueyuan Rd, Beijing 100191, China.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Aug 25;14(9):1688. doi: 10.3390/genes14091688.
It is well known that significant differences exist between males and females in both physiology and disease. Thus, it is important to identify and analyze sex-biased miRNAs. However, previous studies investigating sex differences in miRNA expression have predominantly focused on healthy individuals or restricted their analysis to a single disease. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively identify and analyze the sex-biased miRNAs in diseases. For this purpose, in this study, we first identified the miRNAs showing sex-biased expression between males and females in diseases based on a number of miRNA expression datasets. Then, we performed a bioinformatics analysis for these sex-biased miRNAs. Notably, our findings revealed that women exhibit a greater number of conserved miRNAs that are highly expressed compared to men, and these miRNAs are implicated in a broader spectrum of diseases. Additionally, we explored the enriched transcription factors, functions, and diseases associated with these sex-biased miRNAs using the miRNA set enrichment analysis tool TAM 2.0. The insights gained from this study could carry implications for endeavors such as precision medicine and possibly pave the way for more targeted and tailored approaches to disease management.
众所周知，男性和女性在生理和疾病方面存在显著差异。因此，识别和分析性别偏向性的微小RNA（miRNA）非常重要。然而，以往研究miRNA表达性别差异时，主要集中在健康个体，或仅将分析局限于单一疾病。所以，有必要全面识别和分析疾病中的性别偏向性miRNA。为此，在本研究中，我们首先基于多个miRNA表达数据集，识别出疾病中男性和女性之间表现出性别偏向性表达的miRNA。然后，我们对这些性别偏向性miRNA进行了生物信息学分析。值得注意的是，我们的研究结果显示，与男性相比，女性拥有更多高度表达的保守miRNA，且这些miRNA涉及更广泛的疾病谱。此外，我们使用miRNA集富集分析工具TAM 2.0，探索了与这些性别偏向性miRNA相关的富集转录因子、功能和疾病。本研究获得的见解可能对精准医学等努力具有启示意义，并可能为更具针对性和个性化的疾病管理方法铺平道路。
