Neuropsychiatric and clinical correlates to miRNA expression in the frontal cortex of HIV-infected individuals. Homo sapiens

Objective: To elucidate molecular mechanisms of neurocognitive dysfunction in long-term HIV-infected individuals by assessing the microRNA (miR) profile and determining clinical and neurocognitive correlates to miR expression. Design: Analysis of miR profile in frontal cortex of retrospectively-identified autopsy cases of longitudinally-followed subjects with HIV-infection and age/sex-matched controls. HIV-subjects had semi-annual neuropsychiatric and clinical testing, at autopsy, tissue was archived. Methods: MiR repertoires were profiled from frontal cortices. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey Honestly Sigificant Difference (HSD) tests with Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons were used to compare expression among the three groups. Pairwise correlations were used to identify neuropsychiatric variable that correlatee with expression of miRs. Results: MiRs were significantly different by HIV-status: miR-103, miR-125a, miR-380, miR-422a, miR-515, miR-520b, miR0618, miR-886, and miR-9. Many miRs correlated with neuropsychiatric outcomes like Learning, Memory, Executive, Verbal, and Motor deficit scores. Conclusions: MiRs are clearly dysregulated in the frontal cortex of HIV-positive individuals. Only a few miRs were significantly dysregulated in only the methamphetamine group. Our study identifies miRs that form rational targets for further inquiry on biochemical mechanisms of HIV-related neurocognitive deficits. Learning deficit score correlates with expression of more miRs than other parameters. Overall design: A total of 11 HIV positive individuals were analyzed, 5 of which had a past history of methamphetamine ABUSE, and 5 age-matched HIV-negative normal Controls. Technical duplicates are included. Included are clinical and neuropsychiatric data from most recent visit before time of death. This is a retrospective autopsy study of longitudinally-followed subjects on miRNA levels in the frontal cortex.