Screening for microRNA-based diagnostic markers in hepatic alveolar echinococcosis

Abstract

This study aims to screen differentially expressed host miRNAs that could be used as diagnostic markers for liver alveolar echinococcosis (LAE).Differentially expressed miRNAs were first screened by miRNA microarray in liver tissues from2 LAE patients and normal liver tissues from 3 LAE patients, followed by qRT-PCR validation in 15 LAE tissues and 15 normal tissues. Target genes of differentially expressed miRNAs were predicted using Targetscan, PITA and microRNAorg database, and the overlapped predicted target genes were analyzed by GO and KEGG.The hsa-miR-1237-3p, hsa-miR-33b-3p, and hsa-miR-483-3p were up-regulated whereas the hsa-miR-4306 was down-regulated in LAE tissues compared with normal controls (P