Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, severe inflammatory disease,
characterized by progressive bone, cartilage, and joint
destruction.miRNAs are epigenetic regulatory mechanisms that
participated in broad and long-term changes in gene expression and
involved in various pathophysiological pathways related to several
autoimmune diseases such as RA. The regulated expression of miRNAs in
synovia, T cells, or Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from RA
patients is associated with inflammation, angiogenesis,
osteoclastogenesis, innate immunity, and cartilage synthesis. This work
is designed to analyze the expression of certain miRNAs in PBMCs of 30
RA patients compared to 20 healthy controls using quantitative real-time
polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Selected miRNAs were categorized
into 3 main groups: miRNA participating in the inflammatory response
(miR-16, miR-146a, and miR-155), miRNA participating in the angiogenesis
process (miR-17 - miR-221 and miR-222) and muscle-specific myomiR
(miR-133b and miR-206). The data showed significant elevation in the
fold change expression levels of all studied miRNAs in PBMCs of RA
patients as compared with those in healthy controls. The receiver
operator characteristic curve (ROC) curve analysis of miR-206 showed the
best sensitivity and specificity value among studied miRNAs (70%
sensitivity and 85% specificity). Our results suggest that the elevated
expression of tested miRNAs might be involved in RA pathology including
inflammation, angiogenesis, and bone affection leading to joint
destruction and bone deformity. A better understanding of the role of
these miRNAs will enable a new advanced strategy to ameliorate disease
progression in RA.