miRNA profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from AIDS patients and healthy control group

With the purpose of identifying the cascaded miRNA-mRNA regulatory relationships related to infection of HIV in gene level, we extracted mRNA from Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 50 AIDS patients and 7 uninfected health controls. All AIDS patients in sample were received Antiretroviral Therapy. To further analysis the miRNA expression pattern in different virus load, we classified high virus loads (HVL, n=14) and low virus loads (LVL, n=16). 145 and 129 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) were selected, respectively in LVL and HVL. Functional enrichment analysis indicated miRNA-correlated targets which involved in immune response and apoptosis, played a crucial role in HIV infection. Further, we identified 5 most influential TFs to build miRNA-TF-mRNA regulatory network. In this study, we have included 8 healthy controls and 50 AIDS patients. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from morning fasting venous blood samples were collected for RNA extraction and were ran on Agilent Human miRNA (8*60K) V19.0.

本研究旨在从基因层面鉴定与HIV感染相关的级联miRNA-mRNA调控关系。我们从50名艾滋病患者与7名未感染HIV的健康对照者的外周血单个核细胞（Peripheral blood mononuclear cells，PBMCs）中提取mRNA，所有入组的艾滋病患者均接受了抗逆转录病毒治疗（Antiretroviral Therapy）。为进一步分析不同病毒载量下的miRNA表达模式，我们将样本分为高病毒载量组（HVL，n=14）与低病毒载量组（LVL，n=16），并分别在LVL组与HVL组中筛选得到145个和129个差异表达miRNA（differentially expressed miRNAs，DEMs）。功能富集分析结果显示，参与免疫应答与细胞凋亡过程的miRNA关联靶标，在HIV感染进程中发挥关键调控作用。进一步地，我们筛选出5个影响力最高的转录因子（Transcription Factors，TFs），以构建miRNA-TF-mRNA调控网络。本研究共纳入50名艾滋病患者与8名健康对照者，采集受试者清晨空腹静脉血样本以分离外周血单个核细胞（PBMCs）用于RNA提取，并使用Agilent人类miRNA（8*60K）V19.0芯片完成检测。