Serum exosomal miRNA profiles in fulminant myocarditis patients and healthy controls

Purpose: Exosome-derived microRNAs (miRNAs) are potential diagnostic biomarkers. However, little is known about their effectiveness as diagnostic biomarkers of fulminant myocarditis (FM). This study aimed to explore miRNA levels in serum exosomes of patients with FM as potential biomarkers for FM diagnosis. Methods: 10 samples were screened with a exosomal small RNA sequencing platform (RiboBio). A Mann-Whitney test was performed to discover differentially expressed miRNAs in the two pairwise comparisons: FM versus HC. Results: From the differentially expressed miRNAs, fourteen candidate miRNAs discovered via small RNA sequencing with P<0.05 and fold expression change >2 were selected for further testing Conclusions: These data suggested that the miRNA panel in serum-derived exosomes provided excellent diagnostic capability for FM. Overall design: The miRNA expression profiles of serum exosomes in FM patients and HC were determined using next-generation sequencing, in five replicates, using Illumina HiSeqTM 2500.