AUTHOR=Toor Salman M. , Aldous Eman K. , Parray Aijaz , Akhtar Naveed , Al-Sarraj Yasser , Abdelalim Essam M. , Arredouani Abdelilah , El-Agnaf Omar , Thornalley Paul J. , Pananchikkal Sajitha V. , Pir Ghulam Jeelani , Kuni Raheem Ayadathil Thazhhe , Shuaib Ashfaq , Alajez Nehad M. , Albagha Omar M. E. TITLE=Identification of distinct circulating microRNAs in acute ischemic stroke patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine VOLUME=9 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2022.1024790 DOI=10.3389/fcvm.2022.1024790 ISSN=2297-055X ABSTRACT=

Stroke is the second leading cause of global mortality and continued efforts aim to identify predictive, diagnostic, or prognostic biomarkers to reduce the disease burden. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as potential biomarkers in stroke. We performed comprehensive circulating miRNA profiling of ischemic stroke patients with or without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), an important risk factor associated with worse clinical outcomes in stroke. Serum samples were collected within 24 h of acute stroke diagnosis and circulating miRNAs profiled using RNA-Seq were compared between stroke patients with T2DM (SWDM; n = 92) and those without T2DM (SWoDM; n = 98). Our analysis workflow involved random allocation of study cohorts into discovery (n = 96) and validation (n = 94) datasets. Five miRNAs were found to be differentially regulated in SWDM compared to SWoDM patients. Hsa-miR-361-3p and -664a-5p were downregulated, whereas miR-423-3p, -140-5p, and -17-3p were upregulated. We also explored the gene targets of these miRNAs and investigated the downstream pathways associated with them to decipher the potential pathways impacted in stroke with diabetes as comorbidity. Overall, our novel findings provide important insights into the differentially regulated miRNAs, their associated pathways and potential utilization for clinical benefits in ischemic stroke patients with diabetes.