Circulatory miR-133b and miR-21 as Novel Biomarkers in Early Prediction and Diagnosis of Coronary Artery Disease

While coronary artery disease (CAD) has become a major threat worldwide, the timely biomarker-based early diagnosis of CAD remains a major unmet clinical challenge. We aimed towards assessing the level of circulatory microRNAs as candidates of novel biomarkers in patients with CAD. A total of 147 subjects were recruited which includes 78 subjects with angiographically proven CAD, 15 pre-atherosclerotic normal coronary artery (NCA) subjects and 54 healthy individuals. Quantitative real-time PCR assays were performed. MiR-133b was downregulated by 4.6 fold (p < 0.0001) whereas miR-21 was upregulated by similar to 2 fold (p < 0.0001) in plasma samples of CAD patients. Importantly, both the miRNAs showed association with disease severity as miR-133b was downregulated by 8.45 fold in acute coronary syndrome (ACS), 3.38 fold in Stable angina (SA) and 2.08 fold in NCA. MiR-21 was upregulated by 2.46 fold in ACS, 1.90 fold in SA and 1.12 fold in NCA. Moreover, miR-133b could significantly differentiate subjects with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) from Non-STEMI. Area under the curve (AUC) for miR-133b was 0.80 with >75.6% sensitivity and specificity, AUC for miR-21 was 0.79 with >69.4% sensitivity and specificity. Our results suggest that miR-133b and miR-21 could be possible candidates of novel biomarkers in early prediction of CAD.