23 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgeb.2026.100770 English eng Bilal Rmaidh Mohammed Contributor <div class="abstract author" id="as0005" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h3 class="u-h4 u-margin-m-top u-margin-xs-bottom" id="st0010" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-top: 24px !important; margin-bottom: 8px !important; font-size: 20px !important; line-height: 30px !important;">Background</h3><div class="u-margin-s-bottom" id="sp0050" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px !important;">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.</div></div><div class="abstract author" id="as0010" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h3 class="u-h4 u-margin-m-top u-margin-xs-bottom" id="st0015" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-top: 24px !important; margin-bottom: 8px !important; font-size: 20px !important; line-height: 30px !important;">Objective</h3><div class="u-margin-s-bottom" id="sp0055" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px !important;">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.</div></div><div class="abstract author" id="as0015" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h3 class="u-h4 u-margin-m-top u-margin-xs-bottom" id="st0020" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-top: 24px !important; margin-bottom: 8px !important; font-size: 20px !important; line-height: 30px !important;">Methods</h3><div class="u-margin-s-bottom" id="sp0060" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px !important;">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.</div></div><div class="abstract author" id="as0020" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h3 class="u-h4 u-margin-m-top u-margin-xs-bottom" id="st0025" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-top: 24px !important; margin-bottom: 8px !important; font-size: 20px !important; line-height: 30px !important;">Results</h3><div class="u-margin-s-bottom" id="sp0065" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px !important;">Expression of miR-21 and miR-146 in blood and tissue was significantly lower in patients than in the controls.</div></div><div class="abstract author" id="as0025" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h3 class="u-h4 u-margin-m-top u-margin-xs-bottom" id="st0030" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-top: 24px !important; margin-bottom: 8px !important; font-size: 20px !important; line-height: 30px !important;">Conclusions</h3><div class="u-margin-s-bottom" id="sp0070" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px !important;">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.</div></div> Elsevier September 2026 pdf Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Expression patterns of miR-21 and miR-146 in ulcerative colitis: implications for disease progression and therapeutic strategies mixed material Elsevier