Expression of MIR-146a and MIR-155 in Egyptian behcet's disease patients : clinical significance and relation to disease activity / Aya Erfan Mostafa ; Supervised Ayatallah Amir Nassef , Rasha Elsayed Gheith , Engy Mohamed Elkhateeb

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Clinical and Chemical Pathology

Background: Behçet{u2019}s disease (BD) is classified as a systemic vasculitis associated with significant morbidity and mortality with many distinctive clinical manifestations and multifactorial immunopathogenesis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases. MiR-146 and miR-155 emerged as key regulators of the immune response. Aim of the study: The current study aimed to measure the expression of microRNA146a and microRNA 155 in BD patients and to link their possible association with clinical disease manifestations and with disease activity in order to assess their utility as diagnostic or prognostic markers. Material and Methods: Expression level of mature miR-146a and miR-155 were determined by using singleplex TaqMan two step stem loop quantitative reverse transcription real time polymerase chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) in 60 BD patients and 25 healthy controls of matched age and gender. Results: miR-146a was significantly lower in BD patients when compared with the control group (P- value <0.001). By comparing BD patients and the control group, no statistically significant difference was detected between both groups regarding the level of miR-155 expression (P- value= 0.736). Significant associations were found by comparing miR146a in different clinical manifestations of BD and control group. No significant association was observed between the expression of miR-146a and miR-155 with Behcet's disease current activity form (BDCAF) (P-value=0.843, 0.521 respectively)

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