Circulating oncomiR-21 as a potential biomarker of mild and severe forms of endometriosis for early diagnosis and management

Abstract

Background and aimEndometriosis affects 10–15 % of women and girls in reproductive age which reduces their quality of life and encompasses social and economic consequences. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate a more reliable diagnostic approach using oncomiR-21 expression analysis in patients with mild and severe endometriosis to improve the quality of life with early diagnosis and timely management. MethodsWe first established an in vitro culture system to conduct a transfection experiment for establishing relationship between oncomiR-21 and PTEN. Further, we evaluated differential expression levels of an oncomiR-21 in 45 histologically graded endometrial biopsy tissues and validated in plasma samples of respective women with mild, and severe, and chocolate cyst in South Indian population using SYBR Green-based RT-qPCR analysis. ResultsTransfection results showed negative correlation between oncomiR-21 and PTEN expression levels specifically in severe forms of the disease. Similar to findings in tissue samples for oncomiR-21 expression levels, significantly higher values for endometriosis Grades I & II (8.23 ± 0.76, p < 0.01), endometriosis Grades III & IV (11.51 ± 3.47, p < 0.001), and Chocolate Cyst (13.37 ± 3.68, p < 0.001) was observed. Correlation analysis showed that the best outcome can be measured using oncomiR-21 expression analysis almost similar in tissue as well as plasma samples to distinguish all three categories of endometriosis patients from controls. ConclusionThis study revealed that quantitative analysis of circulating oncomiR-21 in plasma samples can be used as a potential molecular tool for early detection and discrimination of mild and severe forms of endometriosis and risk of malignant transformation for timely diagnosis and improved management of endometriosis patients.