1. Circulating U13 Small Nucleolar RNA as a Potential Biomarker in Huntington’s Disease: A Pilot Study
- Author
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Silvia Romano, Carmela Romano, Martina Peconi, Alessia Fiore, Gianmarco Bellucci, Emanuele Morena, Fernanda Troili, Virginia Cipollini, Viviana Annibali, Simona Giglio, Rosella Mechelli, Michela Ferraldeschi, Liana Veneziano, Elide Mantuano, Gabriele Sani, Andrea Vecchione, Renato Umeton, Franco Giubilei, Marco Salvetti, Rosa Maria Corbo, Daniela Scarabino, and Giovanni Ristori
- Subjects
Huntingtin Protein ,fluid biomarkers ,Organic Chemistry ,Pilot Projects ,small circulating non-coding RNAs ,small nucleolar RNAs ,Huntington’s disease ,General Medicine ,Catalysis ,Computer Science Applications ,Inorganic Chemistry ,MicroRNAs ,Huntington Disease ,Humans ,RNA, Small Nucleolar ,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry ,Molecular Biology ,Spectroscopy ,Biomarkers - Abstract
Plasma small RNAs have been recently explored as biomarkers in Huntington’s disease (HD). We performed an exploratory study on nine HD patients, eight healthy subjects (HS), and five psychiatric patients (PP; to control for iatrogenic confounder effects) through an Affymetrix-Gene-Chip-miRNA-Array. We validated the results in an independent population of 23 HD, 15 pre-HD, 24 PP, 28 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients (to control the disease-specificity) and 22 HS through real-time PCR. The microarray results showed higher levels of U13 small nucleolar RNA (SNORD13) in HD patients than controls (fold change 1.54, p = 0.003 HD vs. HS, and 1.44, p = 0.0026 HD vs. PP). In the validation population, a significant increase emerged with respect to both pre-HD and the control groups (p < 0.0001). SNORD13 correlated with the status of the mutant huntingtin carrier (r = 0.73; p < 0.001) and the disease duration (r = 0.59; p = 0.003). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed the high accuracy of SNORD13 in discriminating HD patients from other groups (AUC = 0.963). An interactome and pathway analysis on SNORD13 revealed enrichments for factors relevant to HD pathogenesis. We report the unprecedented finding of a potential disease-specific role of SNORD13 in HD. It seems to peripherally report a ‘tipping point’ in the pathogenic cascade at the neuronal level.
- Published
- 2022