Haroun Riham Abdel-Hamid, Osman Waleed H, Eessa Asmaa M
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
Department of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Faculty of Medicine, Port-Said University, Port-Said, Egypt.
J Genet Eng Biotechnol. 2023 Nov 13;21(1):114. doi: 10.1186/s43141-023-00565-y.
The identification of miRNAs as well as characterization of miRNA-mRNA interactions in SARS-CoV-2 infection is important to understand their role in disease pathogenesis. Therefore the aim of the present study was to measure the expression levels of hsa-mir-18a-5p in the sera of severe COVID-19 Egyptian patients admitted to ICU to investigate its roles in the pathogenesis and severity of COVID-19 disease.
A total of 180 unvaccinated severe COVID-19 patients were enrolled in our study. Besides the routine laboratory work, the expression level of hsa-mir-18a-5p was done using reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RTqPCR) technique. Also, target genes of hsa-mir-18a-5p were explored by using online bioinformatics databases.
The expression level of hsa-mir-18a-5p decreased in nonsurvival severe COVID-19 patients (0.38 ± 0.26) when compared to the survival ones (0.84 ± 0.23). While as a prognostic tool for the prediction of bad prognosis and mortality among severe COVID-19 patients, our results showed that the serum hsa-mir-18a-5p expression level is a good sensitive and specific marker. By using bioinformatics tools, our results revealed that the decreased hsa-mir-18a-5p expression level may have a crucial role in COVID-19 pathogenesis and severity through decreased immunological responses (interpreted as lymphopenia) or increased inflammation (interpreted as increased serum levels of IL-6, CRP, LDH).
Taken together, the decreased expression level of hsa-mir-18a-5p could be a bad prognostic marker and therapeutic overexpression of hsa-mir-18a-5p could be a novel approach in the treatment of COVID-19 disease.
鉴定新型冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）感染中的微小RNA（miRNA）以及表征miRNA与信使核糖核酸（mRNA）的相互作用对于理解它们在疾病发病机制中的作用至关重要。因此，本研究的目的是测量入住重症监护病房（ICU）的重症新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）埃及患者血清中hsa-mir-18a-5p的表达水平，以研究其在COVID-19疾病发病机制和严重程度中的作用。
本研究共纳入180例未接种疫苗的重症COVID-19患者。除常规实验室检查外，采用逆转录定量实时聚合酶链反应（RTqPCR）技术检测hsa-mir-18a-5p的表达水平。此外还通过在线生物信息学数据库探索hsa-mir-18a-5p的靶基因
与存活的重症COVID-19患者（0.84±0.23）相比,未存活的重症COVID-19患者（0.38±0.26）中hsa-mir-18a-5p的表达水平降低了。作为预测重症COVID-19患者不良预后和死亡率的预后工具，我们结果表明血清hsa-mir-18a-5p表达水平是一个良好的敏感和特异性标志物。通过生物信息学工具，我们结果显示hsa-mir-18a-5p表达水平降低可能通过免疫反应降低（表现为淋巴细胞减少）或炎症增加（表现为血清白细胞介素-6（IL-6）、C反应蛋白（CRP）、乳酸脱氢酶（LDH）水平升高）在COVID-19发病机制和严重程度中起关键作用
综上所述，hsa-mir-18a-5p表达水平降低可能是不良预后标志物，hsa-mir-18a-5p的治疗性过表达可能是治疗COVID-19疾病的新方法。
