TY  - JOUR
A1  - Vetrivel, Sharmilee
A1  - Zhang, Ru
A1  - Engel, Mareen
A1  - Altieri, Barbara
A1  - Braun, Leah
A1  - Osswald, Andrea
A1  - Bidlingmaier, Martin
A1  - Fassnacht, Martin
A1  - Beuschlein, Felix
A1  - Reincke, Martin
A1  - Chen, Alon
A1  - Sbiera, Silviu
A1  - Riester, Anna
T1  - Circulating microRNA Expression in Cushing’s Syndrome
JF  - Frontiers in Endocrinology
N2  - Context
Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare disease of endogenous hypercortisolism associated with high morbidity and mortality. Diagnosis and classification of CS is still challenging.

Objective
Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are minimally invasive diagnostic markers. Our aim was to characterize the circulating miRNA profiles of CS patients and to identify distinct profiles between the two major CS subtypes.

Methods
We included three groups of patients from the German Cushing’s registry: ACTH-independent CS (Cortisol-Producing-Adenoma; CPA), ACTH-dependent pituitary CS (Cushing’s Disease; CD), and patients in whom CS had been ruled out (controls). Profiling of miRNAs was performed by next-generation-sequencing (NGS) in serum samples of 15 CS patients (each before and after curative surgery) and 10 controls. Significant miRNAs were first validated by qPCR in the discovery cohort and then in an independent validation cohort of 20 CS patients and 11 controls.

Results
NGS identified 411 circulating miRNAs. Differential expression of 14 miRNAs were found in the pre- and postoperative groups. qPCR in the discovery cohort validated 5 of the significant miRNAs from the preoperative group analyses. Only, miR-182-5p was found to be significantly upregulated in the CD group of the validation cohort. Comparing all CS samples as a group with the controls did not reveal any significant differences in expression.

Outcome
In conclusion, our study identified miR-182-5p as a possible biomarker for CD, which has to be validated in a prospective cohort. Furthermore, our results suggest that presence or absence of ACTH might be at least as relevant for miRNA expression as hypercortisolism itself.
KW  - cortisol
KW  - ACTH
KW  - miRNA
KW  - biomarker
KW  - cortisol-producing adenoma
KW  - miR-182-5p
KW  - hypercortisolism
KW  - miR-183 cluster
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-229761
SN  - 1664-2392
VL  - 12
ER  -