TY - JOUR

T1 - Mucosal microRNAs relate to age and severity of disease in ulcerative colitis

AU - Malham, Mikkel

AU - James, Jaslin P.

AU - Jakobsen, Christian

AU - Hoegdall, Estrid

AU - Holmstroem, Kim

AU - Wewer, Vibeke

AU - Nielsen, Boye S.

AU - Riis, Lene B.

N1 - Funding Information: This study was supported by the “Overlaege Johan Boserup og Lise Boserups” Scholarship and the Aase and Ejnar Danielsen’s Foundation. Publisher Copyright: Copyright: © 2021 Malham et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2021/3/15

Y1 - 2021/3/15

N2 - Despite significant evidence that the expression of several microRNAs (miRNAs) impacts disease activity in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), it remains unknown if the more severe disease phenotype seen in pediatric onset UC can be explained by an altered miRNA expression. In this study, we assessed the relationship between miRNA expression, age, and disease severity in pediatric and adult patients with UC. Using RT-qPCR, we analyzed the expression of miR-21, miR-31, miR-126, miR-142 and miR-155 in paraffin embedded rectum biopsies from 30 pediatric and 30 adult-onset UC patients. We found that lesions from adult patients had significantly higher expression levels of miR-21 compared to pediatric patients and that the expression levels of miR-31 (all patients) and miR-155 (pediatric patients only) correlated inversely with histological assessed disease severity. Using in situ hybridization followed by image analysis, the expression level estimates of miR-21 and miR-126 correlated with histological assessed disease severity. In conclusion, we found that the expression of miRNAs depends on the age of the patient and/or the severity of the disease, suggesting that miRNAs may contribute to the regulation of inflammation in UC and could be useful biomarkers in the surveillance of disease severity.

AB - Despite significant evidence that the expression of several microRNAs (miRNAs) impacts disease activity in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), it remains unknown if the more severe disease phenotype seen in pediatric onset UC can be explained by an altered miRNA expression. In this study, we assessed the relationship between miRNA expression, age, and disease severity in pediatric and adult patients with UC. Using RT-qPCR, we analyzed the expression of miR-21, miR-31, miR-126, miR-142 and miR-155 in paraffin embedded rectum biopsies from 30 pediatric and 30 adult-onset UC patients. We found that lesions from adult patients had significantly higher expression levels of miR-21 compared to pediatric patients and that the expression levels of miR-31 (all patients) and miR-155 (pediatric patients only) correlated inversely with histological assessed disease severity. Using in situ hybridization followed by image analysis, the expression level estimates of miR-21 and miR-126 correlated with histological assessed disease severity. In conclusion, we found that the expression of miRNAs depends on the age of the patient and/or the severity of the disease, suggesting that miRNAs may contribute to the regulation of inflammation in UC and could be useful biomarkers in the surveillance of disease severity.

KW - in situ hybridization

KW - inflammatory bowel disease

KW - miRNA

KW - pediatric

KW - quantitative polymerase chain reaction

U2 - 10.18632/aging.202715

DO - 10.18632/aging.202715

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33647883

AN - SCOPUS:85102817662

VL - 13

SP - 6359

EP - 6374

JO - Aging

JF - Aging

SN - 1945-4589

IS - 5

ER -