Novel Biomarkers for Drug-induced Liver Injury

MicroRNAs have emerged as promising biomarkers of organ damage including injury of the liver. In this study the new generation of high-throughput sequencing technology was applied to detect circulating  miRNAs in serum from patients with accidental acetaminophen overdose and identified a set of 33 known miRNAs and 3 novel miRNA-like small RNAs that are functionally associated with liver-specific biological processes and relevant to acetaminophen toxic mechanisms. The study suggests a profile of circulating miRNAs in human serum that might provide additional biomarker candidates for drug-induced liver injury and possibly adds mechanistic information relevant to liver injury.

Figure: Serum levels of liver-associated miRNAs after acetaminophen overdose. The liver associated miRNAs miR-122 and miR-192 were detected in serum from acetaminophen-overdosed patients. The graph represents serum levels, based on normalized sequencing reads, of the liver-associated miRNA hsa-miR-122 (A) and hsa-miR-192 (B) in control and acetaminophen-overdosed samples.

For the full article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25359176

Krauskopf J, Caiment F, Claessen SM, Johnson KJ, Warner RL, Schomaker SJ, Burt DA, Aubrecht J, Kleinjans JC. Application of High-Throughput Sequencing to Circulating microRNAs Reveals Novel Biomarkers for Drug-induced Liver Injury. Toxicol Sci. 2014 Oct 29. pii: kfu232. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 25359176.