Peripheral Blood miR-139 May Serve as a Biomarker for Metabolic Disorders by Targeting FoxO1 and FoxP1

The current study mainly evaluated whether peripheral blood miR-139 could be used as a biomarker to screen patients with metabolic disorders.

The peripheral blood was collected with patients with hyperglycemia and high triglycerides (TG) combined with high total cholesterol (TC) as well as healthy control. Real time PCR was carried out to determine the relative peripheral blood miR-139 level in patients with metabolic disorders and healthy individuals. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis and Spearman's correlation coefficient were carried out to evaluate the possible application of miR-139 as a potential biomarker for metabolic disorders. Dual luciferase reporter assay was performed to identify the possible target genes of miR-139.

First, miR-139 was highly upregulated (19.9 ± 12.67) in the peripheral blood of hyperglycemia patients. Meanwhile, compared with healthy controls (1 ± 0.66), the level of miR-139 was much higher (50.28 ± 26.26) in the peripheral blood of high TG combined with TC patients. ROC analysis showed that the peripheral blood levels of miR-139 may be used to differentiate subjects with hyperglycemia or high TG and TC from healthy controls. Furthermore, peripheral blood miR-139 level positively correlated with serum glucose level (r = 0.592, p < 0.001) as well as total serum TG/TC levels (r = 0.423, p < 0.001). Dual luciferase reporter assay indicated that miR-139 significantly suppressed the relative luciferase activity of pmirGLO-FoxO1-3'UTR or pmirGLO-FoxP1-3'UTR.

In summary, enhanced circulating miR-139 level may be a potential biomarker for patients with metabolic disorders via suppressing the expression of FoxO1 and FoxP1.