Circulating plasma MicroRNA in patients with active acromegaly

Context Excessive production of growth hormone causes marked multiorgan changes in patients with acromegaly, which may involve epigenetic mechanisms. Objective To evaluate differences in circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) associated with chronic growth hormone overproduction in adults. Design and setting A cross-sectional case-control study was conducted at a tertiary medical center. Participants We enrolled 12 consecutive patients with acromegaly along with 12 age and gender matched controls in the discovery phase of the study and then extended this cohort to 47 patients with acromegaly and 28 healthy controls for the validation study. Main outcome measures Plasma microRNAs were quantified by next-generation sequencing (NGS) in the discovery phase. Levels of selected miRNAs were validated on extended cohorts using RT-qPCR, compared between groups and correlated with clinical parameters. Results Based on NGS data, we selected three plasma miRNAs downregulated in patients with acromegaly compared to healthy controls: miR-4446-3p -1.317 (p=0.001), miR-215-5p -3.040 (p=0.005), miR-342-5p -1.875 (p=0.013) without multiplicity correction for all three miRNAs. These results were confirmed by RT-qPCR in the validation phase for two miRNAs out of three: miR-4446-3p (p Conclusions In a two-phase experiment using two different techniques we found and validated the downregulation of plasma miR-4446-3p and miR-215-5p in patients with acromegaly compared to healthy subjects, which makes them promising biomarkers for further research.