Serum MicroRNA-4521 is a Potential Biomarker for Focal Cortical Dysplasia with Refractory Epilepsy.
Xiaofeng Wang, Yuqiang Sun, Zeshi Tan, Ningwei Che, Anlong Ji, Xiaodong Luo, Xu Sun, Xinyu Li, Kang Yang, Guanyu Wang, Lan Luan, Yaoling Liu, Minghai Wei, Jian Yin
Author Information
Xiaofeng Wang: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Yuqiang Sun: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Zeshi Tan: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Ningwei Che: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Anlong Ji: Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Xiaodong Luo: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Xu Sun: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Xinyu Li: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Kang Yang: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Guanyu Wang: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Lan Luan: Epileptic Center of Liaoning, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Yaoling Liu: Department of Neurosurgery, Affiliated Fuxing Hospital, The Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100038, China.
Minghai Wei: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Jian Yin: Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, People's Republic of China. dyeyDr_yin@163.com.
Early biomarker-based diagnosis of focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) represents a major clinical challenge. The aim of this study was to identify novel brain microRNAs (miRNAs) in patients with refractory epilepsy and FCD as potential biomarkers. We evaluated serum hsa-miR-4521 as a promising novel biomarker in patients with FCD. Tissue for microarray was obtained from nine patients with temporal lobe refractory epilepsy who underwent surgery to remove epileptic foci identified by cortical video electroencephalogram monitoring. Control tissue was collected from eight patients with hypertension who required emergency surgery to remove an intracranial hematoma. The Affymetrix® GeneChip® Command Console® Software (Affymetrix miRNA 4.0) was used to compare miRNA expression in the cerebral cortex of experimental and control patients. Temporal cortex tissue and serum samples were taken from the same patients for verification of hsa-miR-4521 expression by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The experimental and control patients did not differ significantly in terms of age and gender. 19.4 % (148/764) of the total miRNAs were differentially expressed in experimental and control tissue, which is in agreement with the existing literature. We selected miRNA-4521 for further analysis; the fold-change in expression was 14.4707 and the q value was almost 0, which confirmed up-regulation. Significant up-regulation of hsa-miR-4521 was further validated by RT-qPCR. miRNA microarrays can efficiently and conveniently identify differentially expressed miRNAs in epilepsy brain tissue. This is the first study to identify differential expression of hsa-miR-4521 in brain tissue and serum of refractory epilepsy patients and suggests that serum hsa-miR-4521 may represent a potential diagnostic biomarker for FCD with refractory epilepsy.
