Early Second-Trimester Serum MiRNA Profiling Predicts Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

BACKGROUND Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one type of diabetes that presents during pregnancy and significantly increases the risk of a number of adverse consequences for the fetus and mother. The microRNAs (miRNA) have recently been demonstrated to abundantly and stably exist in serum and to be potentially disease-specific. However, no reported study investigates the associations between serum miRNA and GDM. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We systematically used the TaqMan Low Density Array followed by individual quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assays to screen miRNAs in serum collected at 16-19 gestational weeks. The expression levels of three miRNAs (miR-132, miR-29a and miR-222) were significantly decreased in GDM women with respect to the controls in similar gestational weeks in our discovery evaluation and internal validation, and two miRNAs (miR-29a and miR-222) were also consistently validated in two-centric external validation sample sets. In addition, the knockdown of miR-29a could increase Insulin-induced gene 1 (Insig1) expression level and subsequently the level of Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxy Kinase2 (PCK2) in HepG2 cell lines. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Serum miRNAs are differentially expressed between GDM women and controls and could be candidate biomarkers for predicting GDM. The utility of miR-29a, miR-222 and miR-132 as serum-based non-invasive biomarkers warrants further evaluation and optimization.