Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MITO (The function and biomarker potential of mitochondrial microRNAs in hypertension)
Période du rapport: 2020-08-03 au 2022-08-02
Although it is straightforward to diagnose hypertension and relatively easy to treat the condition with low-cost drugs, recent hypertension prevalence data pinpointed that significant gaps in diagnosis and treatment remain. Thus, there is an unmet need for novel biomarkers for primordial prevention, better control, and decrease in morbidity and mortality associated with hypertension.
Over the years, multiple candidate circulating protein-coding RNAs and noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been identified in various hypertension phenotypes. Among them microRNAs (miRNAs), short ncRNA transcripts, appeared as attractive biomarkers for essential hypertension. Due to the fact that miRNAs participate in disease evolution and response to anti-hypertensive therapy, they represent promising diagnostic, prognostic and surrogate end-point biomarkers for follow-up of hypertension control.
The main objective of the project was to discover clinically-translatable novel miRNA-based methods to improve healthcare of hypertensive patients. In line with that, the MITO project delivered a machine learning based model to predict essential hypertension using miRNA signature from whole blood. In addition, the project allowed a high-quality training of the MSCA fellow, covering three interlinked domains: biomarker discovery, biomarker validation and functional association. This training provided the MSCA fellow with with a strong knowledge of state-of-the-art technologies (WP1) which allowed to achieve the following scientific goals:
(i) Discover novel circulating miRNAs associated with hypertension (WP2) – seven miRNAs and eight piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) were identified as potential biomarkers for hypertension.
(ii) Validate candidate miRNAs and explore gender differences (WP3) – the association with hypertension of six miRNAs was validated in a cohort of 572 participants.
(iii) Determine functional associations between miRNAs and hypertension (WP4) - two lead miRNAs were selected for functional characterisation.
The main objective of WP2 was to discover novel miRNAs biomarkers for essential hypertension. Using small deep RNA sequencing, seven miRNAs and eight piRNAs were identified as biomarkers for hypertension. Six candidate miRNAs were validated by RT-qPCR in 572 samples of the MITO cohort. Five miRNAs were significantly deregulated between patients and healthy controls. Since blood samples were collected during COVID-19 pandemic, an in house PCR test was developed to test the presence of Sars-CoV-2 genes in samples with unknown COVID-19 history. A significant proportion of blood samples were positive for two Sars-CoV-2 genes and were excluded from further analysis. The five significantly deregulated miRNAs together with clinical variables were integrated in a machine learning model for hypertension prediction. The features age, body mass index, current smoker, alcohol use, hypertension family history and two miRNAs were selected by Recursive Feature Elimination method. The k-nearest neighbour algorithm with selected features and optimal parameters could estimate the test dataset with 100% accuracy. The main results of WP2 and WP3 will be published in a scientific publication currently under preparation
The functional characterization of lead miRNA candidates in WP4 has not been carried out as initially planned due to the strong impact of COVID-19 pandemic on timely sample collection and transfer (WP1), delay of experiments planned in WP2 and WP3 as a consequence of delay in delivery of consumables and reorganization of group work according to COVID-19 restrictions. Although COVID-19 pandemic affected the organization and planning of experiments, the main objectives of the MITO project for WP2 and WP3 have been achieved and results will be published in an international peer-reviewed scientific journal.
In WP5, the MSCA fellow published 2 review articles and one position paper, one book chapter and one scientific brochure. One review paper and a guidelines paper for mitochondrial RNA expression profiling are under preparation. The MSCA fellow was appointed as review editor in Frontiers Molecular mechanism of Ageing Journal and delivered 7 public engagements to popularize Women in Research and hypertension prevention. As a management committee member of the CardioRNA COST Action CA17129, she participated in Core Group and Working Group meetings in Athens, Greece and Pavia, Italy. In addition, she has been invited as a speaker to The 47th FEBS Congress with the general topic “Together in bioscience for a better future”, session “RNA biology” (Tours, France, from 8 to 13 July 2023) and the 9th and final Management Committee – Working group meeting of CardioRNA COST Action (Nicosia, Cyprus, from 22 to 24 February 2023).
For the applicant, the present project was a pivotal professional experience which allowed to gain the opportunity to learn from high-class researchers in the field and to raise her research performance to a high level. This allowed her to move to the industry (Biotech Company) since the middle of August 2022 and contribute as program leader to the development of new diagnostics, preventive strategies, innovative therapies and clinical applications that impact healthcare of cardiovascular patients.