Increased Expression Level of Long Noncoding RNA H19 in Plasma of Patients with Myocardial Infarction.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are lengthy noncoding transcripts which are actively involved in crucial cellular pathways. Tissue-specific expression of lncRNAs besides its secretion into the body fluids, has made lncRNAs in attention as biomarkers of the diseases. According to the role of lncRNAs, especially in cardiac regeneration, it is not surprising if their altered expression levels lead to cardiac diseases. In the present study, the relative expression of H19 was compared in the plasma of atherosclerotic myocardial infarction and control individuals by real time-PCR, and data were normalized using . The association of plasma level of lipid and homocystine with expression was also considered. The potential of to discriminate the case from control was studied using the ROC analysis. We found that the plasma level of transcript significantly increased in the plasma of patients in comparison with the control group. Additionally, the relative expression level of was directly associated with the plasma homocystine level. The relative expression of at threshold of 0.3 showed 70% sensitivity and 94% specificity to discriminate cases from controls. This study revealed that the expression level of may be considered as a biomarker of myocardial infarction, although further studies are needed to generalize this finding.