Conclusion
miR-192-5p, miR-194-5p and miR-1246 in serum exosomes might be a potential biomarker for AIDS combined with TM infection patients, which may be involved in TGF-β signaling pathway, AMPK signaling pathway, Wnt signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, cGMP-PKG and cAMP signaling pathway, etc. Further research is needed on the biological functions and mechanisms of these miRNAs.
Methods
We profiled the expression levels of miRNAs via RNA sequencing in serum exosomes from the pooled samples of 17 AIDS patients combined without TM infection and 15 AIDS combined with TM infection patients. For external validation, we validated these
Results
A total of 131 serum exosomal miRNAs including 73 up-regulated and 59 down-regulated miRNAs were found to be differentially expressed (log2FC≥1 and FDR <0.01) in the two groups. A validation analysis revealed that three miRNAs (miR-192-5p, miR-194-5p and miR-1246) were upregulated in exosomes from AIDS combined with TM infection patients. ROC analyses showed that the AUC in combined diagnosis of the three miRNAs was 0.742, and the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 0.568 and 0.861, respectively. In the biological process analysis, all the 3 miRNAs were involved in transcription, DNA-templated and positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter. At the same time, the related pathways were involved in TGF-β signaling pathway, AMPK signaling pathway, Wnt signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, cGMP-PKG and cAMP signaling pathway, etc.