Differences in cerebrospinal fluid microRNA profiles in patients with remitting multiple sclerosis and patients with other neurological diseases

Objective : to compare microRNA profiles in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with remitting multiple sclerosis (RMS) in remission and patients with other neurological diseases. Material and methods . Eight patients with RMS in remission (4 males and 4 females) and 8 patients with other neurological diseases (4 males and 4 females) were included in the study. We compared the microRNA profiles in the CSF of the patients in the two study groups. Profiling was performed by sequencing small RNAs with the MGISEQ-200 device. The differences in microRNA levels were analyzed using the DESeq2 package for the R programming language. For microRNAs whose levels in CSF differed between the analyzed patient groups, a network of interactions with their target genes was created using the miRNet web service. Common targets were identified from the whole set of targets; for the resulting set of targets, an overrepresentation analysis of the pathways annotated in the KEGG database was performed. Results . The level of 30 microRNAs differed significantly (padj<0.05; |log 2 FC|>1) in the analyzed patient groups, the concentration of 13 microRNAs was higher and of 17 – lower in the CSF of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The search for common targets of these microRNAs allowed us to identify 8 protein-coding genes, each of which is a target of at least 5 microRNAs from the selected group: MIDN, MDM2, CDKN1A, TMEM184B, TAOK1, HNRNPA, NFIC and ZNF460. Conclusion . MicroRNA profiles in CSF distinguish patients with MS from patients with other neurological diseases. The possibility of using changes in the concentration of detected microRNAs in CSF as a diagnostic marker for MS needs to be confirmed in independent samples.