Correlation between the miRNA-144 in serum and the severity of coronary atherosclerosis

  AIM  To study the difference of serum miRNA-144 expression between patients with coronary heart disease and healthy people, and to explore its correlation with the severity of coronary atherosclerosis.

  METHODS  67 patients with coronary heart disease and 30 healthy people were selected. The basic clinical and blood biochemical data of the two groups were collected. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the expression level of miRNA-144 in the serum of the sample, and the expression difference was analyzed. The Gensini score was used to evaluate the severity of coronary lesions and to analyze the associations.

  RESULTS  The expression of miRNA-144 in serum of patients with coronary heart disease was significantly higher than that of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (p < 0.01). Among them, the expression of miRNA-144 was the most obvious in patients with acute myocardial infarction, which was about 2.6 times of the control group. The Gensini score was positively correlated with the expression of miRNA-144 (r = 0.69, P < 0.01). The ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC was 0.9888 (P < 0.01), and the sensitivity and specificitly were 98% and 98%, respectively.

  CONCLUSION  The expression of miRNA-144 in serum of patients with coronary heart disease increases, and its expression is positively correlated with the severity of coronary atherosclerosis.