Diagnostic and Prognostic Role of Serum miR-20b, miR-17-3p, HOTAIR, and MALAT1 in Diabetic Retinopathy Olfat G. Shaker 1 Omayma O. Abdelaleem 2 * Rania H. Mahmoud 2 Noha K. Abdelghaffar 3 Tarek I. Ahmed 4 Omar M Said 5 Othman M. Zaki 3 1 Department of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt 2 Department of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt 3 Department of Clinical pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt 4 Department of Internal medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt 5 Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt ABSTRACT Noncoding RNAs are emerging biomarkers for many diseases including dia- betic retinopathy (DR). This study aimed to measure the expression levels of serum miR-20b, miR-17-3p, HOTAIR, and MALAT1 in DR patients. A total of 80 patients diagnosed as type 2 diabetes (T2D) and 81 healthy subjects were recruited in this study. T2D patients were divided into three groups: nondia- betic retinopathy (NDR) group (30 patients), nonproliferative diabetic retinop- athy (NPDR) group (30 patients), and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) group (20 patients). Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to assess the expression of serum miR-20b, miR-17-3p, HOTAIR, and MALAT1. We found a significant decrease in serum miR-20b and a sig- nificant increase in serum HOTAIR and MALAT1 in NDR patients compared to healthy subjects. Also, we revealed a signi ficant decrease in serum miR- 20b and miR-17-3p and a significant increase in serum HOTAIR and MALAT1 in each of NPDR and PDR groups when compared with healthy subjects. Furthermore, we reported a significant decrease in miR-20b and miR-17-3p and a signi ficant increase in HOTAIR and MALAT1in DR as well as in PDR patients when compared with NDR patients. However, on compar- ing NPDR with NDR patients, no signi ficant difference was observed regard- ing the expression levels of miR-20b and miR-17-3p, in contrast, signi ficant elevation of serum HOTAIR and MALAT1 was found in NPDR. Moreover, we observed a signi ficant decrease in serum miR-20b and miR-17-3p and a signi ficant increase in serum HOTAIR and MALAT1 in PDR group relative to NPDR group. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used for evaluating the diagnostic value of the examined serum noncoding RNAs as novel biochemical indicators detecting severity of DR. Our analyses sug- gested that the examined serum noncoding RNAs may discriminate DR (PDR and NPDR) from NDR. Furthermore, these noncoding RNAs (less importantly miR-17) can be used as promising novel biomarkers for predic- tion DR severity, distinguishing PDR from NPDR patients. We can conclude that serum miR-20b, miR-17-3p, HOTAIR, and MALAT1 may be used as non- invasive biomarkers for screening of DR and early diagnosis of PDR. © 2018 IUBMB Life, 9999(9999):1–11, 2018 Keywords: diabetic retinopathy; miR-20b; miR-17-3p; HOTAIR; MALAT1. Abbreviations: AUC, area under the curve; BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval; Ct, cycle threshold; DBP, diastolic blood pressure; DR, diabetic retinopathy; ECs, endothelial cells; FBG, fasting blood glucose; HIF1A, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α; HOTAIR, Homebox antisense intergenic RNA; IQR, inter quartile range; LncRNAs, Long noncoding RNAs; MALAT1, metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1; MiRNAs, micro RNAs; NDR, non diabetic retinopathy; NPDR, nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; PDR, proliferative diabetic retinopathy; ROC, receiver operating characteristic; SBP, systolic blood pressure; SD, standard deviation; T2D, type 2 diabetes; VEGFA, vascular endothelial growth factor A; 2hpp, 2 hours after meal © 2018 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Volume 9999, Number 9999, , Pages 1–11 *Address correspondence to: Omayma O. Abdelaleem, Lecturer of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Egypt. Tel: +201094941030, Fax: +20842160180. E-mail: dr.omayma@yahoo.com Received 1 September 2018; Accepted 22 October 2018 DOI 10.1002/iub.1970 Published online 00 Month 2018 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) IUBMB Life 1 Research Communication