Serum microRNA‐126 Levels Are Associated With Diabetic Nephropathy in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Objective Diabetic nephropathy (DN) occurs in nearly 40% of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients, and there is a positive correlation between DN and terminal renal disease. Thus, exploring novel biomarkers is vital to facilitate early diagnosis and intervention in DN patients; however, indicators of DN are still scant. Since the microRNA‐126 (miR‐126) may be related to the occurrence of diabetes, we aim to assess the association between miR‐126 and DN. Methods This is a prospective cohort design and a nested case–control approach study that enrolled 300 individuals (100 T2DM patients, 100 DN patients, and 100 controls). miR‐126 expression was analyzed by quantitative real‐time PCR (qPCR) and compared among three groups. The overall survival (OS) was presented by Kaplan–Meier analysis. The area under the curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the potential of miR‐126 as a biomarker for DN. Result DN patients, compared with T2DM and controls, had lower miR‐126 content ( p < 0.001), and miR‐126 levels significantly decreased following a decreasing estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) ( r = 0.65, p < 0.001). Moreover, significant differences were also found in OS among quartiles of serum miR‐126 level ( p for trend < 0.001). In addition, the AUC for diagnosis DN from T2DM patients was found to be 0.804 (95% CI, 0.745–0.863), with a sensitivity of 83.0% and a specificity of 63.0%. Conclusion This study provides evidence to clarify that decreased levels of miR‐126 were linked to an increased susceptibility to developing DN compared with healthy volunteers. More importantly, the diagnostic role of miR‐126 remained significant in differentiating DN from T2DM patients.