Bone Abstracts

Osteoporosis is the commonest worldwide age-related bone disease. It is clinically symptomless until the first fracture happens. Circulating microRNAs can be used as novel biomarkers to assess health status and progression of complex diseases. A recent review highlighted the involvement of microRNAs in the control of bone formation and remodeling. Most of these studies have been done on animal models, but few on human blood samples.

This research aims to identify circulatory microRNAs associated with osteoporosis in a test group of patients using advanced PCR arrays. The identified potential biomarker microRNAs will be validated using individual clinical specimens in single samples.

Ethical approvals (REC: 11/NW/0593/NHS R&D 4195/UoL000760) prior to patient recruitment were obtained. Patient blood samples were pooled into four groups: osteopenia, osteopenia with fracture, osteoporosis and osteoporosis with fracture. They were subjected to RNA extraction using QIAGEN miRNeasy kits and miRNA expression profiling was performed using the Qiagen Human Serum & Plasma 384HC miRNA PCR Array kit, with data analysis carried out using Qiagen software.

We investigated the expression of microRNAs in serum pools from osteopenia and osteoporosis patient groups. A panel of 49 up or down differentially expressed miRNAs (by >3 fold) between osteopenia and osteoporosis patient groups identified. MiRNAs expression on selected numbers of individual clinical samples were performed using 26 differentially expressed miRNAs by qRT-PCR, and seven of them showed a significant difference (by >2 fold) between the two groups.

Small RNA can be successfully isolated and identified from serum and plasma from people with osteoporosis disease and differential occurrence is evident. Future work is aimed at validating identified up or down differentially expressed miRNAs in different cohort of clinical samples; to understand the role of the identified differentially expressed miRNAs in pathogenesis and to assess whether they can be used as a biomarker for osteoporosis.