Serum aberrant expression of microRNA-125b-5p and its association with carotid artery stenosis

Abstract Objectives This study focused on the aberrantly expressed miR-125b-5p and explored its diagnostic and prognostic value in CAS patients. Methods A total of 218 individuals with informed consent were enrolled including 92 healthy individuals (control) and 126 patients with CAS and they provided blood samples willingly. The miR-125b-5p level was computed through qRT-PCR. For assessing the diagnostic capacity of miR-125b-5p, the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) was adopted, supplemented by correlation analysis. The prognostic performance of miR-125b-5p was appraised with the help of the Kaplan-Meier curve plotted according to 5-year follow-up and multivariate Cox regression. Results The expression of serum miR-125b-5p was aberrantly lower in CAS patients than that in the control group. There was a negative correlation between the miR-125b-5p level and the severity of CAS. The ROC curve proved a high credibility in miR-125b-5p diagnosis. The area under the curve (AUC) reached 0.969 with high sensitivity (96.44 %) as well as specificity (86.81 %). Kaplan-Meier curve verified that CAS patients having lower miR-125b-5p were at a higher risk of developing cerebrovascular events (CEs). Both miR-125b-5p and degree of CAS were identified as independent risk factors of developing CEs for CAS patients via multivariate Cox regression analysis. Conclusions The serum miR-125b-5p was aberrantly lower in CAS patients. Lower miR-125b-5p possessed high diagnostic along with prognostic value in CAS patients.