Evaluation of Microrna-125B-5P and Transcription Factors Blimp1 and Irf4 Expression in Unsolved Common Variable Immunodeficiency Patients Publisher Pubmed



Esfahani ZH^{1, 2} ; Yazdani R² ; Shahkarami S^{2, 3, 4} ; Babaha F^{1, 2} ; Abolhassani H^{2, 5, 6} ; Sadr M⁷ ; Pourfathollah AA¹ ; Aghamohammadi A²
Source: Iranian Journal of Allergy# Asthma and Immunology Published:2021

Abstract

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is the most prevalent form of symptomatic primary humoral immunodeficiencies characterized by failure in the final differentiation of B lymphocytes. The majority of CVID cases have no identified genetic defect, and epigenetic alteration could be involved in the pathogenesis of CVID. Hence, we aimed to evaluate the expression of hsa-miR-125b-5p -and, B lymphocyte-induced maturation protein-1(BLIMP-1) and interferon regulatory protein-4 (IRF-4) in a group of CVID patients with no definitive genetic diagnosis in comparison with healthy individuals. Ten CVID patients (all known genes excluded) and 10 age and sex-matched healthy controls participated in the study. B lymphocytes were isolated and expression of miR-125b-5p, IRF4, and BLIMP1 were evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Moreover, B cell subsets were analyzed by flow cytometry. The results showed that the relative expression of miR-125b-5p in CVID patients was increased while it was decreased for the BLIMP1 and IRF4 transcription factors compared with the healthy controls. Although a reduction was observed in switched and non-switched memory B cells among all high-miR patients, these subsets were decreased in patients with normal miR expression (71.0% and 85.0%, respectively). Our results suggest that overexpression of miR-125b-5p affects the terminal differentiation of B cells in a selected group of CVID patients by downregulating the BLIMP-1 gene and more intensively for the IRF-4 gene expressions. Copyright © 2021 Hamidi Esfahani et al.