Decreased plasma miR-140-3p is associated with coronary artery disease.

Background: Although many circulating miRNAs (c-miRNAs) are associated with coronary artery disease (CAD), they are far from being the biomarker for CAD diagnosis or risk prediction. Therefore, novel c-miRNAs discovery and validation are still required, especially evaluating their prediction capacity. Objectives: Identify novel CAD-related c-miRNAs and evaluate its risk prediction capacity for CAD. Methods: miRNAs associated with CAD were preliminarily investigated in three paired samples representing pre-CAD stage and CAD stage of three female individuals using the Applied Biosystems miRNA TaqMan® Low-Density Array (TLDA). Then, the candidate miRNAs were further verified in an independent case-control study including 129 CAD patients and 76 controls, and their potential practical value in prediction for CAD was evaluated using a machine learning (ML) algorithm. The accuracy of classification and prediction was assessed with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results: TLDA analysis shows that miR-140-3p decreased significantly in CAD-stage (FC = -3.01, Conclusion: Reduced levels of miR-140-3p is linked to CAD, and it is possible to use the plasma level of miR-140-3p as a means of evaluating the risk of CAD.