Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and typically strikes young adults, disproportionally women. There is currently no one definitive test for MS. Diagnosis and disease activity monitoring is based on clinical examination, MRI imaging, CSF studies and neurophysiology, but these are associated with high costs and limited accessibility. Therefore, blood-based biomarkers for MS are urgently needed.
Serum derived extracellular vesicle (EV) is a promising molecular candidate to be used as biomarkers. EVs selectively package RNA, DNA, and proteins from originating cells for cell-to- cell communication. We hypothesize that this can be developed into a blood-based assay for MS detection and monitoring.
We profiled EV-borne sncRNAs from MS patient serum samples in different disease courses (n=26) along with matched controls (n=12) using high-throughput sequencing. We report that MS patient sera exhibit dysregulation of miRNAs in relation to controls, and that the panel of such miRNAs shows specificity to the disease subtype. Importantly, we have also identified a group of miRNAs that are associated with MS progression from RRMS to S/PPMS.
This study shows that serum EVs from MS patients are meaningfully altered in their miRNA profiles, which can potentially be utilized as biomarkers. To our knowledge, this is the first proof-of-principle demonstration that miRNAs from serum exosomes can be used to distinguish stages of MS in patients.