Serum levels of miR-34, miR-182 and miR-378 as novel diagnostic biomarkers in Behçet patients and their relation to disease activity and severity.

Background: Behçet Disease (BD) is a chronic multi-systemic vasculitis of relapsing and remitting nature. Many recent studies have denoted the role of micro RNAs (MiRNAs) in the pathogenesis of BD.

Subjects and methods: Blood samples were withdrawn from 50 BD patients and 40 age and sex-matched healthy individuals in this study.

Results: Serum expression levels of miR-34a and miR-182 were significantly elevated in BD patients when compared to controls, p < .001. However, serum expression levels of miR-378 were significantly decreased in BD patients compared to controls, p < .001. miR-182 serum levels were also found to be elevated in active BD patients compared to patients in inactive state (p = .022). We found a significant association between miR-34 levels and joint affection in BD patients as well as a significant relation between miR-182 levels and each of neurological manifestations and genital ulcerations. In addition, a statistically significant positive correlations were proved in the current results between miR-182 expression and BDCAF score (r = 0.419, p = .002) as well as severity score (r = 0.358, p = .011).

Conclusion: Our study denoted that the three miRNAs; miR-34a, miR-182, and miR-378 possibly play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of BD. The distinction of their serum levels between patients and healthy individuals suggested their potentiality as promising biomarkers for BD.