1. Associations of circulating plasma microRNAs with age, body mass index and sex in a population-based study
- Author
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Tim Kacprowski, Elke Hammer, Georg Homuth, Uwe Völker, Nele Friedrich, Sabine Ameling, Maik Pietzner, Volkmar Liebscher, Karsten Suhre, Carolin Malsch, and Ravi Kumar Chilukoti
- Subjects
Oncology ,Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Aging ,Population ,Biology ,Body Mass Index ,Cohort Studies ,Young Adult ,BMI ,Circulating microRNA ,Plasma ,Age ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Genetics ,Humans ,Genetics(clinical) ,education ,Genetics (clinical) ,Genetic association ,Aged ,miRNA ,Association studies ,education.field_of_study ,Sex Characteristics ,Blood Cells ,Association Studies ,Blood ,Bmi ,Circulating Microrna ,Mirna ,Sex ,Middle Aged ,Human genetics ,Circulating MicroRNA ,MicroRNAs ,Phenotype ,Study of Health in Pomerania ,Immunology ,Female ,Body mass index ,Cohort study ,Sex characteristics ,Research Article - Abstract
Background Non-cellular blood circulating microRNAs (plasma miRNAs) represent a promising source for the development of prognostic and diagnostic tools owing to their minimally invasive sampling, high stability, and simple quantification by standard techniques such as RT-qPCR. So far, the majority of association studies involving plasma miRNAs were disease-specific case-control analyses. In contrast, in the present study, plasma miRNAs were analysed in a sample of 372 individuals from a population-based cohort study, the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP). Methods Quantification of miRNA levels was performed by RT-qPCR using the Exiqon Serum/Plasma Focus microRNA PCR Panel V3.M covering 179 different miRNAs. Of these, 155 were included in our analyses after quality-control. Associations between plasma miRNAs and the phenotypes age, body mass index (BMI), and sex were assessed via a two-step linear regression approach per miRNA. The first step regressed out the technical parameters and the second step determined the remaining associations between the respective plasma miRNA and the phenotypes of interest. Results After regressing out technical parameters and adjusting for the respective other two phenotypes, 7, 15, and 35 plasma miRNAs were significantly (q
- Published
- 2015