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Abstract

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is an endemic disease that causes serious disease and economic loss in the majority of countries around the world. MiRNAs are an epigenetic factor that is essential to the regulation of the immune response by interfering with cytokine expression; one such miRNA is microRNA-146a. The aim of the present study was to assess if we could use microRNA 146a as a biomarker for the detection of CE and to determine the relationship between microRNA 146a gene expression and IL-17 in patients with CE. The study included 50 CE patients who were admitted to the hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, for CE removal surgery and 50 healthy controls. The serum was collected from September 2022 to June 2023. The sample’s age range was 20–55 years. Rural patients were infected at a higher rate than urban patients (74.00% and 42.00%, respectively), The lung was the most affected organ (74%), followed by the liver (18%), then the liver and lung together (8%). CE patients had significantly higher miRNA-146a fold expression than control group members (4.33 ± 1.01 and 1.00 ± 0.23, respectively). The serum level of IL-17 was significantly higher in the control group, at 129.15 ± 4.73ng/L, than in patients, at 105.99 ± 5.81ng/L. According to our findings, miRNA-146a is upregulated in the sera of CE patients, which leads to the development of novel biomarkers for echinococcosis and it is associated negatively with IL-17 levels. This may interfere with their immune system's inflammatory response and contribute to the pathogenesis of CE.

Keywords

Cystic echinococcosis, Cytokine, Hydatid cyst, IL-17, miRNA-146a, microRNA

Subject Area

Biology

First Page

122

Last Page

131

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Receive Date

9-17-2023

Revise Date

10-29-2023

Accept Date

10-31-2023

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