Free circulating mircoRNAs support the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis in patients with hematologic malignancies and neutropenia

Sci Rep. 2020 Oct 5;10(1):16532. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-73556-5.

Abstract

Fungal infections represent a worrisome complication in hematologic cancer patients and in the absence of disease specific symptoms, it is important to establish new biological indicators, which can be used during mould-active prophylaxis. Recently, miRNAs have appeared as candidate diagnostic and prognostic markers of several diseases. A pilot clinical study was performed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of 14 microRNAs which can be related to invasive fungal infections. Based on our data miR-142-3p, miR-142-5p, miR-26b-5p and miR-21-5p showed significant overexpression (p < 0.005) due to invasive aspergillosis in hemato-oncology patients with profound neutropenia. A tetramiR assay was designed to monitor peripheral blood specimens. Optimal cut-off was estimated by using the median value (fold change 1.1) of the log10 transformed gene expressions. The biomarker panel was evaluated on two independent sample cohorts implementing different antimicrobial prophylactic strategies. The receiver operating characteristic analysis with area under the curve proved to be 0.97. Three miRNAs (miR-142-5p, miR-142-3p, miR-16-5p) showed significant expression alterations in episodes with sepsis. In summary, the tetramiR assay proved to be a promising diagnostic adjunct with sufficient accuracy and sensitivity to trace invasive aspergillosis in hemato-oncology patients.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Area Under Curve
  • Aspergillosis / diagnosis*
  • Aspergillosis / genetics*
  • Biomarkers, Tumor / blood
  • Biomarkers, Tumor / genetics
  • Cell-Free Nucleic Acids / blood
  • Cell-Free Nucleic Acids / genetics*
  • Cell-Free Nucleic Acids / metabolism
  • Circulating MicroRNA / blood
  • Circulating MicroRNA / genetics*
  • Circulating MicroRNA / metabolism
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Hematologic Neoplasms / complications
  • Hematologic Neoplasms / genetics
  • Humans
  • Invasive Fungal Infections / diagnosis
  • Invasive Fungal Infections / genetics
  • Male
  • MicroRNAs / genetics
  • MicroRNAs / metabolism
  • Middle Aged
  • Neutropenia / complications
  • Neutropenia / genetics
  • ROC Curve
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Sepsis / blood
  • Sepsis / genetics

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Cell-Free Nucleic Acids
  • Circulating MicroRNA
  • MIRN142 microRNA, human
  • MIRN16 microRNA, human
  • MicroRNAs