Non-Coding RNA Signatures in Chronic Kidney Disease: A New Approach to Disease Diagnosis and Monitoring

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has limitations in terms of early detection and therapy because its pathophysiology is exceedingly complex and poorly understood. CKD is often diagnosed after renal damage has occurred. This highlights the need for enhanced clinical tools for diagnosis and therapy as well as greater mechanistic understanding of CKD. Non-coding RNA molecules, known as miRNAs, are now being identified as novel indirect indicators of CKD progression as they have a role in post-transcriptional gene regulation in CKD. The study's objective was to evaluate the expression of miR-29a & miR-191a levels in HTN-CKD cases by using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in plasma samples that could serve as biomarkers of HTN-induced kidney damage. 110 CKD patients were included in our study, subdivided into two groups: 1) renal group (n = 50); 2) renal failure group under hemodialysis (n = 60); and 40 healthy control subjects. Results: Circulating miR-29a & miR-191a were significantly different between CKD groups (renal & renal failure) and the control group. Renal failure subjects had the highest levels of miR-191a and the lowest levels of miR-29a, exhibiting areas under the curve close to 1 in ROC analysis. miR-29a was positively correlated with GFR but negatively correlated with urea and creatinine. Conversely, there was a negative correlation with creatinine and urea and a positive correlation with GFR with reference to miR-191a. Conclusion: Circulating miR-29a and miR-191a were found to be independently related with the progression of CKD. Our study indicates that these miRNAs could be used as non-invasive markers to detect early stages of CKD.