Expression profiling in exosomal miRNAs of patients with late-onset acute graft-versus-host disease in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Recent studies have demonstrated exosomal microRNAs are potential in facilitating molecular diagnosis. Currently, little is known about the underlying mechanism of late-onset acute GVHD (LA GVHD). Identification of altered differential expression profiling of miRNAs in exosome will be useful for understanding role of miRNA in the LA GVHD. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relevance of miRNAs in exosome derived from patients developing LA GVHD after allogeneic HSCT. Plasma samples were collected from patients with LA GVHD (n = 5), non-GVHD (n = 5) and controls (n = 8) for exosomal miRNA expression profiling by a TaqMan low-density array. Exosomes were extracted by using Total Exosome Isolation Reagent, and the exosomal miRNA profiling was performed with a TaqMan Low-Density Array. The relative expression level of each gene was calculated by using the comparative thresholds cycle (Ct) method. Synthetic spike control (ath-miR-159) was used as an invariant control for the exosomal miRNA.