Study of miR-29a-5p Expression in HIV Positive and HIV/HCV Co-Infected Patients in Sanandaj-Iran

Co-infection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) with hepatitis virus accelerates liver injury. Recently, there has been paid more attention to micro RNAs (miRs) as new tools for determination of liver injury. Previous studies revealed that miR-29 inhibits HIV replication. It has been also shown that miR-29 decreases in hepatocytes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients. The present study aimed to determine the miR-29a-5p expression as a possible diagnostic marker in HIV- and HIV-HCV co-infected patients..
In this cross-sectional study, blood samples were collected from 40 healthy, 44 HIV-positive, and 121 HIV/HCV co-infected subjects. Blood CD4 (cluster of differentiation 4) cell counts were recorded and serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activities, miR-29a-5p expression, fibrosis-4 (FIB-4), and AST to platelet ratio index (APRI) index were determined. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 16 and p value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant..
Serum ALT and AST activities and FIB-4 and APRI were significantly higher in HIV-HCV-co-infection group than the control group (P miR-29a-5p was significantly down-regulated in HIV- and HIV/HCV-co-infected patients and showed a correlation with liver injury. Down-regulation of miR-29a-5p was directly associated with CD4 cell counts and reversely correlated with FIB-4 and APRI index. Therefore, the determination of miR-29a-5p may be useful, among other markers, for diagnosis of these diseases..