Circulating non-coding RNAs in Huntington disease

We performed a study of whole non-coding RNA expression profiles, by microarray, in plasma from 9 patients with Huntington disease (CH) in early stage and 13 controls: 8 healthy subjects (HD) and 5 patients with schizophrenia (SC). The CH patients were under antipsychotic drugs, the most effective treatment option also in SC patient (we included in the study SC control group to minimize the impact of neuroleptic drugson the expression of non-coding RNAs and to identify a HD-specific set of non-coding RNAs). Blood samples were obtained by venous punctures in EDTA-tubes for plasma preparation. Cell- and platelet-free plasma was prepared following a step centrifugation protocol: samples were centrifuged at 1.500 g for 15′ at 4 °C and supernatant will be stored at −80 °C. RNA was extracted using Plasma/Serum Circulating RNA purification Kit (NORGEN) following the manufacturer’s instructions. Labeled RNA from each sample was analyzed by GeneChipmiRNA 2.0 Array (Affymetrix) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Raw data were analyzed using Partek Genomic Suite software. Looking for differently expressed non-coding RNAs, we found a candidate HC-specific set compared to both control groups (HD and SC) (p<0.05 and │foldchanges│>1.5): hsa-miR-98 has proved to be down-regulated, while hsa-miR-323b-3p was up-regulated; 2 novel snoRNAs were up-regulated. We performed a study of whole non-coding RNA expression profiles, by GeneChipmiRNA 2.0 Array (Affymetrix - according to the manufacturer’s instructions), in plasma from 9 patients with Huntington disease (CH) in early stage and 13 controls: 8 healthy subjects (HD) and 5 patients with schizophrenia (SC). The CH patients were under antipsychotic drugs, the most effective treatment option also in SC patient (we included in the study SC control group to minimize the impact of neuroleptic drugson the expression of non-coding RNAs and to identify a HD-specific set of non-coding RNAs)