Candidate miRNA expression profile in acute kidney injury,investigating using cell line modeling

Aim: Contrast-induced acute kidney injury [CI-AKI] is a clinical complication and is an important cause of increased mortality, prolonged hospitalization and increased medical costs. Early diagnosis and preventive measures are key for effective interventions in CI-AKI. Diagnosis is based on serum creatinine levels, which are widely used but lag behind the actual time of renal injury and seriously affect early diagnosis and intervention. MicroRNA [miRNA] has been found to be a useful biomarker in the early diagnosis of CI-AKH. In our study, it was aimed to establish the miRNA expression profile in CI-AKH and to detect new miRNAs that could be biomarkers. Material and Methods: In our study, human renal tubular epithelial HEK-293T cells were treated with iohexol to generate a KI-ABH cell model. After the cell viability test, RNA was isolated from the cultured cells. Expression profiling was performed with miRNA PCR array. Results: When iohexol was given to HEK-293T cells as a contrast agent and cell viability test was applied, no change in cell morphology was observed. When expression profiling by miRNA microarray was evaluated after RNA isolation from cells, 20 miRNAs were downregulated and 6 miRNAs were upregulated. Three miRNAs (miR-378a-3p, miR-182-5p, miR-23b-3p) with significant changes as a result of the analysis were validated by real-time PCR method. Statistical analyzes were performed using two-way ANOVA and paired t-test methods from the triple replicated samples, and the results were found to be statistically significant (**p< 0.01). Conclusion: It was observed that among these miRNAs which were not found to be associated with contrast nephropathy in recent studies, miR-182-5p, miR-221-3p, miR-151a-5p, miR-181b-5p, miR-23b-3p, miR-103a-3p, miR- 23a-3p, miR-378a-3p, miR-191-5p, miR-17-5p were detected in AKI models due to different etiologies such as nephrotoxins, sepsis, I/R injury. Keywords: Acute kidney injury, contrast nephropathy, miRNA