Abstract
Purpose :
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis (JIA-U) is a silent vision-robing disease. Favorable visual outcome depends largely upon early diagnosis and aggressive treatment to eradicate inflammation. This study was aimed to investigate microRNA's (miRNA) expression in JIA-U and explore a possible role as predictive biomarkers of the disease.
Methods :
NanoString miRNA expression assay was performed on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of 12 JIA patients: four patients with active uveitis (active group), four patients with uveitis in remission (non-active group) and four patients without uveitis (control group). Expression analysis was performed.
Results :
Differential expression was found for several miRNAs in JIA with and without uveitis (all following adjusted p values<0.05). miR-432 and miR-337 were increased in the JIA-U groups (active and non-active) vs. control. Conversely, miR-582, miR-199b, miR-450a and miR-1537 were decreased for JIA-U patients vs. controls. Also noteworthy, miR-423 and miR-320e were increased in active vs. non-active uveitis and in active vs. control, thus indicating presence of active uveitis.
Conclusions :
This study is the first to demonstrate different expression profiles of miRNAs in JIA patients with and without uveitis. If verified in larger studies, these findings may enable to identify JIA patients prone to develop uveitis.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.