Plasma microRNA biomarker detection for mild cognitive impairment using differential correlation analysis.

Abstract

BackgroundMild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate state between normal aging and dementia including Alzheimer’s disease. Early detection of dementia, and MCI, is a crucial issue in terms of secondary prevention. Blood biomarker detection is a possible way for early detection of MCI. Although disease biomarkers are detected by, in general, using single molecular analysis such as t-test, another possible approach is based on interaction between molecules.ResultsDifferential correlation analysis, which detects difference on correlation of two variables in case/control study, was carried out to plasma microRNA (miRNA) expression profiles of 30 age- and race-matched controls and 23 Japanese MCI patients. The 20 pairs of miRNAs, which consist of 20 miRNAs, were selected as MCI markers. Two pairs of miRNAs (hsa-miR-191 and hsa-miR-101, and hsa-miR-103 and hsa-miR-222) out of 20 attained the highest area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.962 for MCI detection. Other two miRNA pairs that include hsa-miR-191 and hsa-miR-125b also attained high AUC value of ≥ 0.95. Pathway analysis was performed to the MCI markers for further understanding of biological implications. As a result, collapsed correlation on hsa-miR-191 and emerged correlation on hsa-miR-125b might have key role in MCI and dementia progression.ConclusionDifferential correlation analysis, a bioinformatics tool to elucidate complicated and interdependent biological systems behind diseases, detects effective MCI markers that cannot be found by single molecule analysis such as t-test.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40364-016-0076-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.