miRNA 206 and miRNA 574-5p are highly expression in coronary artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of human morbidity and mortality worldwide. Innovative diagnostic biomarkers are a pressing need for this disease. miRNAs profiling is an innovative method of identifying biomarkers for many diseases and could be proven as a powerful tool in the diagnosis and treatment of CAD. We performed miRNA microarray analysis from the plasma of three CAD patients and three healthy controls. Subsequently, we performed quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of miRNA expression in plasma of another 67 CAD patients and 67 healthy controls. We identified two miRNAs (miR-206 and miR-574-5p) that were significantly up-regulated in CAD patients as compared with healthy controls (P<0.05). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves indicated these two miRNAs had great potential to provide sensitive and specific diagnostic value for CAD.