Background and objective
Asthma is an inflammatory process, where T lymphocytes cells, mainly the Th1/Th2
cells, participate in bronchial asthma’s pathogenesis and progression. Studying the
inflammatory and genetic mediators’ expression levels, which control this
inflammatory process like microRNAs, is essential to illustrate this disease’s
pathogenesis. This work aimed to evaluate the levels of miRNA-1 and
inflammatory mediators interleukin (IL)-5, interferon-γ (IFNγ), and tumor necrosis
factor (TNF)-α in the peripheral blood of adult-onset asthmatic patients and their
correlation to the disease severity.
Patients and methods
A case–control study was carried out on 69 participants, divided over two groups:
group I was the asthmatic group, which included 49 patients with adult-onset
bronchial asthma more than 18 years old, subdivided to group IA, with mild asthma
(10 patients), group IB, with moderate asthma (19 patients), and group IC, with
severe asthma (20 patients). Group II was the control group, which included 20
healthy individuals. IL-5, TNFα, and IFNγ were measured by enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and relative quantification of MiRNA-1
expression was done by PCR.
Results
miRNA-1 decreased significantly in asthmatics and decreased more with
increasing severity of the disease, with a significant positive correlation between
miRNA-1 and both forced expiratory volume in first second and IFNγ, and
meaningful negative relationship between miRNA-1 and both IL-5 and TNFα.
The sensitivity and specificity of miRNA-1 in diagnosing asthma and detecting
its severity were 100%.
Conclusion
miRNA-1 expression level is significantly decreased in adult-onset asthmatic
patients. It decreases with increasing severity of the disease, with a positive
correlation between miRNA-1 and plasma IFNγ but a negative relationship
between miRNA-1 and both plasma IL-5 and TNFα