title: Plasma miR-17-5p, miR-20a and miR-22 are down-regulated in women with endometriosis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Can plasma microRNAs be used as a non-invasive diagnostic test for the detection of endometriosis?
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Plasma miR-17-5p, miR-20a and miR-22 are down-regulated in women with endometriosis compared with those without endometriosis in mainland China.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  There is currently a pressing need to develop a non-invasive diagnostic test for endometriosis. Altered circulating microRNA profiles have already been linked to various disease states.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a prospective laboratory study in a tertiary-referral university hospital in Beijing, PR China, between January 2012 and May 2012. Twenty-three women with histologically proven endometriosis and 23 endometriosis-free controls were enrolled in this study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Laparoscopic inspection of the abdominopelvic cavity was performed for each patient, and peripheral blood samples were collected before laparoscopy. Microarray-based microRNA expression profiling was used to identify differentially expressed microRNAs in plasma samples between women with and without endometriosis, and quantification of selected microRNAs was performed using quantitative RT-PCR.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-seven microRNAs were differentially expressed between women with and without endometriosis, of which six microRNAs (miR-15b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-20a, miR-21, miR-22 and miR-26a) were selected for validation. MiR-17-5p, miR-20a and miR-22 were significantly down-regulated in women with endometriosis compared with controls (P = 0.011, 0.0020 and 0.0002, respectively), yielding an area under the receiver operator characteristics curve of 0.74 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.58-0.90], 0.79 (95% CI: 0.65-0.93) and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.71-0.98) in discriminating endometriosis from controls, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our sample size was small and all cases were rAFS stage III-IV, which may limit generalization of plasma microRNAs for early diagnosis of endometriosis. Moreover, only six microRNAs were selected for validation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Plasma microRNAs provide a promising opportunity for detection of endometriosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,  Peking Union Medical College Hospital,  Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing,  PR China.
authors.forename: Shuang-Zheng
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Yunpeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Jinghe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: Pengran
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Jinhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leng
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015536:Down-Regulation; D004715:Endometriosis / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: C524941:MIRN17 microRNA, human; C534451:MIRN20a microRNA, human; C548375:MIRN22 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs