Expression patterns of miR-21 and miR-146 in ulcerative colitis: implications for disease progression and therapeutic strategies

Background

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), where dysregulated microRNAs (miRNAs) may play a role in the immune imbalance and injury to the mucosa. miR-21 and miR-146 have been associated with inflammatory signaling pathways.

Objective

The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression levels of miR-21 and miR-146 in blood and colonic tissue of patients newly diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) compared to healthy controls.

Methods

A case–control study was performed from January to October 2025. Patients who have recently been diagnosed with UC. The age range of the study subjects was 15–65 years and they were recruited at the time of diagnosis from gastroenterology/endoscopy services inxx and from collaborating clinics and healthy individuals as controls. Total RNA extracted from peripheral blood and colonic tissue, and expression of miR-21 and miR-146 levels were quantified by qRT-PCR, Relative miRNA expression levels were calculated by the 2^-ΔCt method after normalization with the endogenous reference gene. The relative expression levels was calculated to the control groups.

Results

Expression of miR-21 and miR-146 in blood and tissue was significantly lower in patients than in the controls.

Conclusions

The new findings were that miR-21 and miR-146 were down-regulated in blood and much more strongly suppressed in colonic tissue in newly diagnosed UC. The results further confirm miR-21 and miR-146 as potential biomarker candidates for UC characterization, and as potential starting points for miRNA-based therapeutic approaches. These patterns should be confirmed in larger cohorts of patients and correlated to disease severity, extent and treatment response using formal inferential statistics in future studies.

Loại tài liệu:

Article - Bài báo

Tác giả:

Bilal Rmaidh Mohammed

Đề mục:

Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

Nhà xuất bản:

Elsevier

Ngày xuất bản:

September 2026

Số trang/ tờ:

Định dạng:

pdf

Định danh tư liệu:

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgeb.2026.100770 | ISSN 1687-157X

Nguồn gốc:

Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Volume 24, Issue 3, September 2026, 100770

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