• Exosomal microRNAs as Biomarkers in Allergic Asthma
  • Sahar Rostami Hir,1 Zahra Alizadeh,2 Marzieh Mazinani,3 Mohammad Reza Fazlollahi,4 Ahmad Zavaran Hosseini,5 Mostafa Moin,6,*
    1. Department of Medical Immunology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
    2. Immunology, Asthma and Allergy Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    3. Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University,Tehran, Iran
    4. Immunology, Asthma and Allergy Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    5. Department of Medical Immunology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
    6. Children, s Medical center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran


  • Introduction: Asthma is a common chronic disease of the respiratory system that leads to airflow reversible obstruction and bronchial spasm. Various clinical and paraclinical methods are used for asthma diagnoses which are time-consuming. The interaction of genetic and environmental factors is important in development of asthma. Recently, the importance of miRNAs derived from exosomes has been considered as epigenetic regulating molecules in asthma diagnosis. MiRNAs are single-stranded RNA molecules of 19-25 nucleotides, they regulate gene expression by pairing to the 3 untranslated region (UTR) of the target mRNA and lead to degrading target mRNA or inappropriate translation of target protein. Therefore, it is suggested that miRNAs expression profiles may be different between asthmatic patients and healthy specimens. The aim of this study was to determine expression profiles of selective miRNAs from plasma derived exosomes in asthmatic patients.
  • Methods: Blood samples were collected from 24 asthmatic patients and 24 healthy controls. Selective miRNAs were extracted from exosomal plasma and miRNAs expression level was determined using real-time PCR technique. Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze data and the result with p-value < 0.05 were considered significant.
  • Results: The results showed significant different expression (p<0.05) of miR-223 between patients and healthy controls.
  • Conclusion: Previous stydies have demonstrated the role of miR-223 in granulocytes differentiation and infiltration. Study of miR-223 target genes will be the next step to find out its role in development of asthma.
  • Keywords: Asthma, Plasma, Exosome, MiRNAs