Expression levels of circulatory mir-185-5p, vascular endothelial growth factor, and platelet-derived growth factor target genes in endometriosis

Using blood-based biomarkers such as microRNAs (miRNAs) may allow particularly effective and minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis.

We evaluated the differential expression of circulating miRNA-185-5p (miR-185-5p), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) target genes between endometriosis and healthy women.

25 women with a history of endometriosis (grad III-IV) diagnosed by laparoscopy as the case group and 25 women  without endometriosis underwent laparoscopy for ovarian cysts or pelvic pain as the control group were enrolled in this case-control study. Blood samples were obtained, and total RNA was used for high-throughput small RNA sequencing, and this was confirmed by means of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR).

miRNA expression profiling using non-coding RNA sequencing revealed that one miRNA including miR-185-5p was significantly down-regulated in the case group compared with the controls. The qRT-PCR results showed significant downregulation of the expression level of miR-185-5p (p < 0.01) in the plasma of the case group. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed the area of miR-185-5p under the ROC curve for endometriosis diagnosis was 0.919 (p < 0.001). The RT-PCR results demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the expression of VEGF and PDGF mRNA of blood samples in the cases compared to the control group (PDGF, p = 0.09 and VEGF, p = 0.36).

The low expression of miR-185-5p in the plasma of women with endometriosis could be employed as an important non-invasive biomarker for early detection and screening of endometriosis by blood samples.