Circulating miR-29c, miR-30c, miR-193a-5p and miR-885-5p: Novel potential biomarkers for HTLV-1 infection diagnosis

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is an oncoretrovirus that infects 5-10 million people worldwide. Currently, different methods are used to test HTLV-1 infection. However, a biomarker that could enable an early and accurate diagnosis of HTLV-1 infection is still lacking. Here, we compared the serum miRNA expression profile in HTLV-1 infected patients versus healthy individuals to identify a potential biomarker for diagnosis of HTLV-1 infection.TaqMan miRNA microarray (TLDA) was carried out to compare the miRNA expression profile in infected versus healthy individuals. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) was applied to validate TLDA results. Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of the most highly and significantly identified deregulated miRNA(s) as potential biomarker(s). We identified deregulated expression for ten miRNAs with miR-127, miR-136, miR-142-3p, miR-221, and miR-423-5p being down-regulated whilst let-7b, miR-29c, miR-30c, miR-193a-5p, and miR-885-5p being up-regulated in infected individuals. ROC curve analyses showed an AUC (Areas Under the ROC Curve) of 0.875 (95% CI: 0.7819-0.9581; P = .0021), 0.861 (95% CI: 0.7596-0.9754; P = .003), 0.856 (95% CI: 0.689-0.895; P = .011), and 0.849 (95% CI: 0.678-0.855; P = .017) for miR-29c, miR-30c, miR-193a-5p, and miR-885-5p respectively. Combined ROC analyses using these 4 miRNAs showed a greater AUC of 0.907 (95% CI: 0.809-1; P = .000001) indicating a robust diagnostic value of these 4 miRNAs. Our findings highlight serum miR-29c, miR-30c, miR-193a-5p and miR-885-5p as novel potential biomarkers important for HTLV-1 diagnosis.