TY - JOUR PY - 2016// TI - Alterations of microRNA-124 expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in pre- and post-treatment patients with major depressive disorder JO - Journal of psychiatric research A1 - He, Shen A1 - Liu, Xiaohua A1 - Jiang, Kaida A1 - Peng, Daihui A1 - Hong, Wu A1 - Fang, Yiru A1 - Qian, Yiping A1 - Yu, Shunying A1 - Li, Huafang SP - 65 EP - 71 VL - 78 IS - N2 - Recently, increasing evidence has indicated that dysfunction of microRNA-124 (miR-124) might be involved in the pathophysiology and treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in some animal models of depression. However, the role of miR-124 in MDD patients remains unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the miR-124 expression levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were associated with MDD and to evaluate the effects of antidepressant treatment on miR-124 levels. Quantitative real-time PCR was applied to detect miR-124 expression in 32 pre- and post-treatment MDD patients and 30 healthy controls. Our results showed that expression levels of miR-124 from PBMCs in MDD patients were significantly higher than those in healthy controls (p < 0.001), and that the area under the curve of miR-124 from ROC analysis was 0.762 with a sensitivity of 83.33% and specificity of 66.67% in distinguishing MDD patients from healthy controls. In addition, the expression levels of miR-124 were significantly down-regulated after eight weeks of treatment (p < 0.001). MiRNA target gene prediction and functional annotation analysis indicated that altered miR-124 was involved in affecting some important biological processes and pathways related to MDD. These results provide new information on miR-124 involvement in the biological alterations of MDD and in antidepressant effects.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0022-3956 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2016.03.015 ID - ref1 ER -