Peripheral Blood miR-148 Serves as a Novel Biomarker in Ulcerative Colitis Patients

The current study aims to evaluate the expression of miR-148 in peripheral blood of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and to explore its relationship with the progression of UC.

RT-qPCR was used to detect the expression of miR-148 in the peripheral blood of UC patients and healthy controls. Serum C-reactive protein (CRP) was detected by ELISA and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was measured by automatic erythrocyte sedimentation analyzer. Pearson's method was used to analyze the correlation of miR-148 with CRP and ESR. The diagnostic value of peripheral blood miR-148 was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC).

The relative expression of miR-148 in the peripheral blood of UC patients was higher than that of the control group. Further study showed that peripheral blood miR-148 level in the UC group was positively correlated with CRP and ESR. Moreover, ROC analysis demonstrated that the area under curve (AUC) of miR-148 in diagnosing UC was 0.837 (p = 0.008, 95% CI: 0.748 - 0.925). When the cutoff was 4.746, the sensitivity and specificity were 86.9% and 91.5%, respectively. More importantly, peripheral blood miR-148 combined with ESR and hs-CRP demonstrated better diagnostic efficiency in active UC patients.

In summary, enhanced expression of miR-148 in peripheral blood of UC patients may be expected to be an index for evaluating the activity of UC disease.