title: Reduced circulating miR-15b is correlated with phosphate metabolism in patients with end-stage renal disease on maintenance hemodialysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Disorders of mineral metabolism can facilitate the progression of vascular calcification and are closely associated with adverse outcomes in end-stage renal disease (ESRD). miR-15b has been implicated in the epigenetic regulation of key metabolism, stress response, and osteoblast differentiation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, we detected miR-15b in the plasma of 30 patients with ESRD and 20 healthy controls using real-time quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR). Compared with healthy controls, the circulating levels of miR-15b were significantly reduced in patients with ESRD. However, there is no significant difference in circulating miR-15b levels when comparing prehemodialysis and posthemodialysis in patients with ESRD. In addition, to further estimate the potential roles of aberrantly expressed candidate miR-15b in the pathogenesis of ESRD, we utilized a bioinformatics exploratory analysis and identified gene ontology "biological process" classifications which revealed that dysregulated circulating miR-15b might be involved in phosphate metabolism. Furthermore, circulating miR-15b positively correlated with both estimated glomerular filtration rate (r = 0.502, p = 0.003) and hemoglobin levels (r = 0.432, p = 0.017) and inversely correlated with phosphate level (r = -0.516, p = 0.004).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings indicated that the dysregulated miR-15b might contribute to the progression of ESRD by modulating genes that might be involved in the phosphate metabolism, which might have the potential of being used as a biomarker for monitoring disease.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Medical Research Center, The Second Clinical Medical College (Shenzhen People's Hospital), Jinan University, Shenzhen, PR China.
authors.forename: Honglei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Wujian
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ouyang
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dai
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000097:blood* / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010710:Phosphates / Q000378:metabolism*; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D006435:Renal Dialysis
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs; D010710:Phosphates