Association of circulating hsa-miRNAs with sarcopenia: the SarcoPhAge study

To identify a microRNA signature associated to sarcopenia in community-dwelling older adults form the SarcoPhAge cohort. In a screening phase by next generation sequencing (NGS), we compared the hsa-miRome expression of 18 subjects with sarcopenia (79.6 ± 6.8 years, 9 men) and 19 healthy subjects without sarcopenia (77.1 ± 6 years, 9 men) at baseline. Thereafter, we have selected eight candidate hsa-miRNAs according to the NGS results and after a critical assessment of previous literature. In a validation phase and by real-time qPCR, we then analyzed the expression levels of these 8 hsa-miRNAs at baseline selecting 92 healthy subjects (74.2 ± 10 years) and 92 subjects with sarcopenia (75.3 ± 6.8 years). For both steps, the groups were matched for age and sex. In the validation phase, serum has-miRNA-133a-3p and has-miRNA-200a-3p were significantly decreased in the group with sarcopenia vs controls [RQ: relative quantification; median (interquartile range)]: −0.16 (−1.26/+0.90) vs +0.34 (−0.73/+1.33) (p < 0.01) and −0.26 (−1.07/+0.68) vs +0.27 (−0.55/+1.10) (p < 0.01) respectively. Has-miRNA-744-5p was decreased and has-miRNA-151a-3p was increased in the group with sarcopenia vs controls, but this barely reached significance: +0.16 (−1.34/+0.79) vs +0.44 (−0.31/+1.00) (p = 0.050) and +0.35 (−0.22/+0.90) vs +0.03 (−0.68/+0.75) (p = 0.054). In subjects with sarcopenia, serum hsa-miRNA-133a-3p and hsa-miRNA-200a-3p expression were downregulated, consistent with their potential targets inhibiting muscle cells proliferation and differentiation.