Maternal circulating microRNAs as non-invasive biomarkers for prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects

Background and Aim : Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most frequently occurring congenital disorders, with a total incidence of 8/1000 living births. Although details of the underlying causes of CHD have been well studied, the exact etiology of this disease is not recognized yet. Unfortunately, the misdiagnosis is very high besides the conventional diagnostic methods that cause the disease to remain a cause of infant mortality up to 30- 50%. So, a more reliable approach is needed. Methods : Additionally, it is proved that the earlier the diagnosis of CHD, the better the prognosis, thus the prenatal detection of fetal CHD is a key to the decrease of the mortality and the improvement of the prognosis of individuals with CHD. An increasing number of studies have shown that circulating miRNA levels could have great potential as novel prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers for many diseases to assess treatment outcomes. Results : A relationship between miRNAs and cardiogenesis has been identified before. Furthermore, specific miRNAs that relate to fetal CHD can be detected in the peripheral blood of pregnant women originating fetus placenta. Some experiments separately showed several miRNAs that can potentially act as biomarkers for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of fetal CHDs. Conclusion : Here, we collected these miRNAs as a prenatal CHD diagnostic panel in relatively early pregnancy.

کلیدواژه ها:

Congenital heart defects ، miRNAs ، non invasive prenatal diagnosis