Endocervical miRNA Expression Profiles in Women Positive for Chlamydia trachomatis with Clinical Signs and/or Symptoms Are Distinct from Those in Women Positive for Chlamydia trachomatis without Signs and Symptoms

Abstract

Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading cause of sexual transmitted infections which may progress to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. No effective vaccine exists for Chlamydia, nor are there biomarkers available that readily predict disease progression. In this cross sectional, pilot study, we recruited symptomatic and asymptomatic women with C. trachomatis (CT) infection and asymptomatic, uninfected control women from an urban sexually transmitted disease clinic to determine if there were differences in microRNA expression. Infected women with signs and/or symptoms (CTSS) have distinct miRNA profiles compared to asymptomatic infected women (CTNS). In the CTSS group miR-142 and 147 showed 2.2 to 6.9-fold increase in expression. In the CTNS group miR-449c, 6779, 519d, 449a, and 2467 showed 3.9 to 9.0-fold increase in expression. In the CTNS group cyclins and cell cycle regulation and IL-17 pathways were likely downregulated, while the same signaling pathways were upregulated in the CTSS group. In addition, in the CTSS group additional inflammatory pathways associated with TNFR1 and IL-8 appear to be upregulated. The miRNA expression patterns differ between CT infected symptomatic and asymptomatic women, and these differences may warrant further study.

Normospermic Patients Infected With Ureaplasma parvum: Role of Dysregulated miR-122-5p, miR-34c-5, and miR-141-3p

“…However, the possible modulation of host miRNAs by bacteria has not been so deeply explored until now that they could be considered as non-invasive and effective predictive biomarkers for complete spermatogenesis [30]. Only a single study on female patients reported modification of a specific endocervical miRNA pattern in patients with Chlamydia trachomatis while other studies on mouse models only hypothesized an association between different species of Chlamydia and specific host miRNAs in the female murine genital tract [43][44][45][46][47]. To our knowledge, no evidence reported a modulation of sperm miRNA by UP, and therefore this is a novel insight into exploring host miRNA modifications by bacteria.…”

MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarkers for the Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prognosis of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Recent Advances and Future Directions

“…MiRNAs play a crucial role in the assessment of the effectiveness and prognosis of treatment for CT infection in the reproductive tract. Batteiger et al [43] examined samples from 83 symptomatic and asymptomatic CT-infected females and analyzed the diferences in miRNA expression. Compared to healthy individuals, in the symptomatic infection group, miRNA-142 and miRNA-147 showed a 2.2-6.9-fold increase in expression, while the asymptomatic infection group In vitro [27] miR-101-3p TLR2 3, UTR…”