Hsa-miR-200c-3p is down regulated in stable coronary artery disease: A pilot study

Four male patients were enrolled for this study in collaboration with the Cardiology Unit of Policlinico Tor Vergata-Fondazione PTV (Rome). The first group of patients has chronic coronary artery disease (CAD) confirmed by coronary angiography, the second group are subjects with clinically proven healthy coronary arteries (CTR). On our case study we have performed a genome-wide methylation study on genomic DNA bisulfite-converted and a miRNA-sequencing study using NextSeq 500 ILLUMINA platform. The methylation study showed different methylated regions (DMRs) and single CpG sites (DMCs) in patients sharing the same clinical and pathological features, allowing detecting distinctly different methylation patterns between CTR subjects and CAD patients. Moreover, miRNA-sequencing results displayed a differential expression of several significant miRNAs (p-value<0.05), defining a peculiar miRNAs profile in patients featuring the same clinical data. miRNA-sequencing and genome-wide methylation integreted results, showed hsa-miR-200c-3p down-regulated in CAD patients compared to control subjects (FC CAD=2.97 and p≤0.05) and with two hypermethylated sites (genomic coordinates: chr12:7073122-7073122 and chr12:7072599-7072599) in its promoter region (p-value=0.009). We extended the validation of these results on all case study (n=96; 24 CTR and 72 CAD). Analysis of genome-wide methylation level and miRNA-seq expression profile of two different groups of patients (CTR, CAD). In total we have analyzed 4 samples.