The following is a summary of “Circulating miRNAs Detect High vs Low Visceral Adipose Tissue Inflammation in Patients Living With Obesity,” published in the March 2024 issue of Endocrinology by Makarenkov, et al.
The degree of inflammation in visceral adipose tissue (VAT) in obese individuals indicates obesity subtypes associated with increased cardiometabolic risk. However, direct sampling of the tissue was not feasible in non-surgical patients. For a study, researchers sought to investigate whether circulating microRNAs (circ-miRs) could serve as biomarkers to differentiate between human obesity subgroups with varying levels of VAT inflammation.
They included discovery and validation cohorts of patients with obesity undergoing bariatric surgery (n = 35 and 51, respectively). VAT inflammation was categorized as low or high based on an expression score derived from the messenger RNA levels of TNFA, IL6, and CCL2 (determined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction). Differentially expressed circ-miRs were identified, and their ability to detect low or high VAT inflammation was assessed using receiver operating characteristic–area under the curve (ROC-AUC) analysis.
Out of 263 circ-miRs, 53 (20%) were associated with high VAT inflammation in the discovery cohort, according to Mann-Whitney analysis. Among these, 12 (12/53 = 23%) showed differential expression according to Deseq2, and 6 significantly discriminated between high and low VAT inflammation with ROC-AUC greater than 0.8. Among the resulting 5 circ-miRs that were differentially abundant in all three statistical approaches, 3 were unaffected by hemolysis and validated in an independent cohort. Circ-miRs 181b-5p, 1306-3p, and 3138, combined with homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), exhibited ROC-AUC of 0.951 (95% CI, 0.865-1) and 0.808 (95% CI, 0.654-0.963) in the discovery and validation cohorts, respectively, demonstrating strong discriminative power between participants with low and high VAT inflammation. Predicted target genes of these miRNAs are enriched in pathways related to insulin and inflammatory signaling, circadian entrainment, and cellular senescence.
Circ-miRs that identify patients with low versus high VAT inflammation could serve as a potential tool to enhance personalized care for obese patients.
Reference: academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/109/3/858/7274810