Changes and bioinformatics analysis of microrna-146a in serum of patients with myasthenia gravis

HUANG Pan; XU Min; HE Xiaoying; WANG Chun

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2018.48.003

Abstract：Objective To observe the changes in levels of microRNA-146a in the serum of patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), and to analyze the molecular regulatory network of microRNA-146a in the pathogenesis of MG by bioinformatics.Methods One hundred and eight patients who was first diagnosed MG (MG group), and 50 healthy persons in the same period (control group) were selected, and then the serum microRNA-146a was tested by RT-PCR.The UCSC genome online tools were used to analyze the position and conservatism of microRNA-146a in the human genome.Targetscan and Co MeTa database was used to predict the inter-target gene of microRNA-146a.DAVID database was used to analyse the functional enrichment (GO enrichment) and signal pathway enrichment (KEGG Pathway) of target gene in microRNA-146a.Results The serum microRNA-146a in the MG group was 2.13±0.63, which was higher than that (0.86±0.38) of control group (P＜0.05).Nucleotide sequence was highly conserved in microRNA-146a, with 88 types of potential target genes ERBB4, NUMB, CD80, TRAF6, IRAK1, etc.GO analysis showed that the function of microRNA-146a target gene mainly focused on the synthesis process of cell proliferation regulation, neuronal differentiation, phosphorus metabolism reaction, immune inflammation, and cytokines, etc.KEGG Pathway showed that microRNA-146a target gene mainly focused on Toll receptor signaling pathway, neurotransmitter regulatory signaling pathway, EB signaling pathway, and other signaling pathways.Conclusion The level of microRNA-146a is elevated in the serum of MG patients, which can participate in the pathogenesis of MG by acting on multiple signaling pathways.