Serum miRNA Profile in Diabetic Patients with Ischemic Heart Disease as a Promising non-invasive Biomarker

Background: The increasing morbidity and mortality of type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2DM) patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) highlights an urgent need to identify early biomarkers, which would help to predict individual risk of development of IHD. Here, we postulate that circulating serum-derived miRNAs may serve as potential biomarkers for early IHD diagnosis and help to identify diabetic individuals with a predisposition to undergo IHD. Methods We obtained serum samples from T2DM patients either with IHD or IHD-free and analysed the expression levels of 798 miRNAs using the NanoString nCounter Technology Platform. The prediction of the putative miRNAs targets was performed using the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) software. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to assess the diagnostic value of identified miRNAs. Results Our data showed that 9 miRNAs (miR-1224-5p, miR-1303, miR-3147, miR-4455, miR-498, miR-548b-3p, miR-548d-3p, miR-615-3p, miR-651-5p) were significantly upregulated in T2DM IHD patients compared to T2DM patients without IHD. In patients with upregulated miRNA, functional enrichment analysis of target genes by IPA indicated networks and canonical pathways involved in the pathology of the cardiovascular system. All tested miRNAs showed high diagnostic value (AUC > 0.8). Conclusions Taken together, our findings suggest that circulating miRNAs might have a crucial role in the development of IHD in diabetic patients and may be used as a potential biomarker for early diagnosis.