Establishing A Unique Micro Rnas Panel With Viral Load For Real-Time Assessment Of Disease Status, Therapeutic Response And Relapse In Hcv Patients

Background: Micro RNAs (miRNAs) are one of the most promising diagnostic and therapeutic targets to determine the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) pathogenesis and treatment response. Identification of HCV infected subjects at early stages, represents an urgent need due to continuous increasing prevalence and mortality and further to improve long-term prognosis of these individuals. Hence, the present study was undertaken to identify the role of miRNAs panel containing miR-21, miR-122 & miR-181a to identify their viral kinetics during HCV infection and treatment response in patients infected with HCV genotype 1 and genotype 3. Methods and materials: A total of 25 healthy controls and 184 HCV patients (treatment with PEG-IFNα2a, RBV, Sofosbuvir, Daclatasvir and Ledipasvir) were enrolled in the present study. Viral RNA was extracted from serum followed by quantification of HCV viral load at different time points before and after treatment. Expression of selected miRNA's (miR-21, miR-122 & miR-181a) were assessed by RT-qPCR and correlated with viral load and liver function test (LFT). Results: The expression level of miRNA-21 was significantly high in HCC patients compare to control subjects. The miRNA-21 expression level was significant decrease with increasing the treatment duration and was almost negligible at the end of treatment for chronic HCV. miRNA-122 showed significantly high expression level of (>2.0 fold, p < 0.001) in chronic patients as compared to the healthy subjects. After treatment with all the regimens the expression level of miRNA-122 was gradually decreased in HCV infected subjects. Whereas the expression levels of miRNA-181a got significantly enhanced with increasing the treatment duration (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The panel of miRNAs can be used to identify the HCV related disease conditions such as acute, chronic, cirrhosis and HCC. miRNA-181a could be a good disease progressive marker in combination with miRNA-122 and miRNA-21 further to segregate different category of HCV.