非酒精性脂肪性肝病(NAFLD)是世界上慢性肝病的主要病因之一。活检需要确认诊断,但由于其侵入性,此程序不适用于大规模筛查。对于怀疑患有NAFLD的患者,有允许诊断病理过程的初级医学检查的实验室标准。但这些标准不符合临床医生的要求。同时,确定NAFLD初始阶段的患者至关重要.最近,科学家的注意力集中在NAFLD发展机制和新的诊断方法的研究上。这项研究的积累结果表明,NAFLD的发展受表观遗传因素的调控,包括microRNA家族(microRNA,miR),这可能具有很高的诊断和预后价值。在这次审查中,从PubMed中提取的数据用于讨论microRNA在肝脏脂质代谢和脂肪肝疾病中的潜在作用。微小RNA的可能性(miR-16,miR-21,miR-34a,miR-103,miR-122,miR-145,miR-192等)用作低侵袭性NAFLD诊断的前瞻性生物标志物,评估脂肪变性活动和纤维化评分和分期,并对该疾病的预后标志物进行了综述。本研究讨论了分析特征,在临床实践中使用它们的好处和可能的局限性。初步数据允许声称一些microRNA是极其透视的低侵入性诊断工具,需要进一步的研究来调查某些microRNA在NAFLD发展的发病机制中的影响。
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the leading causes of chronic liver diseases in the world. The biopsy is required to confirm the diagnosis but due to its invasiveness, this procedure is not suitable for the massive screening. There are laboratory criteria of primary medical examination of the patients who are suspected to have NAFLD that allow diagnosing the pathological process, but these criteria do not comply with clinicians\' requirements. At the same time, it is crucial to identify the patients in the initial stages of NAFLD. Recently, the attention of the scientists was concentrated on the research of the mechanism of NAFLD development and new diagnostic approaches. Accumulating results of this research show that NAFLD development is regulated with epigenetic factors, including microRNAs family (microRNA, miR), that may have high diagnostic and prognostic value. In this
review, data extracted from PubMed are used to discuss the potential role of microRNA in the liver lipid metabolism and fatty liver disease. The possibilities of micro RNA (miR-16, miR-21, miR-34a, miR-103, miR-122, miR-145, miR-192, and others) use as prospective biomarkers for low-invasive NAFLD diagnostic, evaluation of steatosis activity and fibrosis score and stages, and prognostic markers of the disease are reviewed. This research discusses the analytical characteristics, benefits and possible limitations of their use in the clinical practice. The preliminary data allow claiming that some microRNAs are extremely perspective low-invasive diagnostic instrument and further research is required to investigate the impact of certain microRNAs in the pathogenetic mechanism of NAFLD development.