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Can Echinococcus granulosus-Derived MicroRNAs be Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Follow-up of Cystic Echinococcosis Patients?

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Abstract

Introduction

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a neglected tropical disease caused by the larval stages of Echinococcus granulosus (E. granulosus). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs acting as mediators in host-parasite interaction. Recently, numerous studies have been conducted on miRNAs in infectious diseases; however, little data are available about the role of miRNAs in pathogenesis and early diagnosis of CE.

Methods

The current study evaluated the expression of four E. granulosus-derived miRNAs, including egr-miR-125,5p, egr-let-7,5p, egr-miR-2, and egr-miR-71 in fibrotic and healthy liver tissues of 31 CE patients with active and inactive hydatid cysts by qRT-PCR.

Results

Of the 31 patients, 48.4% had active cysts (CE1 and CE2), while the remainder had transitional (16.1%) and inactive (35.5%) CE types cysts. The qRT-PCR analysis revealed a significant increase of 11.2, 9.91, 6.2, and 13.1-fold in the fibrotic tissue group for egr-miR-125,5p, egr-let-7,5p, egr-miR-2, and egr-miR-71, respectively. Among these miRNAs, egr-miR-125-5p exhibited the highest area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.8050 for predicting liver fibrosis.

Conclusions

Our findings provide new data about the role of E. granulosus-derived miRNAs in pathogenesis of CE. The high AUC of egr-miR125,5p reflecting the possibility of using egr-miR125,5p as biomarker in CE diagnosis. Further studies on serum of CE patients are needed to confirm the potential role of circulating egr-miR-2a-3p and egr-miR-125-5p in the early diagnosis of CE.

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Data Availability

All data generated or analyzed during the current study are included in the paper.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the patients who participated in this study and the staff of Ahvaz’s hospitals for their assistance with sample collection. This study was conducted as part of M. Fasihi Karami’s Ph.D. thesis.

Funding

The Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Medical Basic Sciences Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran, provided financial support for this project under grant CMRC-0022.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Medical Basic Sciences Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

    Maryam Fasihi Karami & Dian Dayer

  2. Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Health Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

    Molouk Beiromvand, Abdollah Rafiei & Mahmoud Rahdar

  3. Department of Parasitology, School of Medicine, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

    Molouk Beiromvand, Abdollah Rafiei & Mahmoud Rahdar

  4. Department of Surgery, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

    Amin Bahreini & Ali Asghar Dastyar

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  1. Maryam Fasihi Karami
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Correspondence to Molouk Beiromvand.

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Fasihi Karami, M., Beiromvand, M., Rafiei, A. et al. Can Echinococcus granulosus-Derived MicroRNAs be Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Follow-up of Cystic Echinococcosis Patients?. Acta Parasit. 68, 231–239 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11686-022-00654-x

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