Revista de diagnóstico y biomarcadores moleculares

The field of pediatrics has been acknowledged since early eras, comprising references from the works of Hippocrates. Children are prone to a number of diseases like adults, frequently leading to clinical treatment that uses the same drugs and biological products. Use of medications in children has a long and storied past from exposure to tetanus tainted diphtheria toxin, through the sulfanilamide pediatric formulation tragedy and the in utero exposure to thalidomide. Each of these misfortunes caused in legislation to encourage the development of safe and efficacious therapeutics. Even though the level of applicable investigation has been growing, only a fraction of the obtainable treatments in adults have been sufficiently evaluated in pediatric populations to assess age-appropriate dosing, tolerability, and efficacy.

An analytical indicator that captures what is occurring in a cell or an organism at a given moment is a biomarker or biological marker. In order to analyze natural biological mechanisms, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic reactions to a clinical action, biomarkers are also measured and evaluated. In many research disciplines, biomarkers are used. 

Homocysteine assessment has been proposed as a potential predictive biomarker for the severity of COVID-19 infection. The purpose of this review was to analyze the correlation between the prevalence of MTHFR 677T allele and COVID-19 incidence and mortality worldwide. There is a clear trend towards the worldwide prevalence of MTHFR 677T allele and COVID-19 incidence and mortality. The prevalence of MTHFR 677T allele in the Latino population and the incidence and mortality for COVID-19 was higher for this ethnic group than that reported for most other populations globally. Statistical analysis showed a relatively strong correlation between 677T allele and death from coronavirus. Genetic polymorphism of MTHFR C677T may modulate the incidence and severity of COVID-19 pandemic infection.

Objectives: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common malignancy of thyroid. We aimed to investigate the association of let-7f, miR-146b-5p, miR-34b, miR-16 and miR-877-5p expression in blood circulation and tumor with aggressiveness of PTC.

Methods: A total of 18 patients with aggressive PTC and 18 patients with non-aggressive PTC were studied. The microRNAs expressions were evaluated using real-time PCR. Fold changes (FC) of the miRs in aggressive PTC patients were calculated via calibration with mean of expression of the miRs in non-aggressive groups.

Results: MiR-16 showed significant up regulation in blood (FC=2.85; P=0.024), miR-34 showed significant down regulation in blood (FC=0.19; P<0.001) and tumor tissue (FC=0.19; P<0.001), miR-146 showed significant up regulation in blood (FC=48.10; P<0.001) and tumor tissue (FC=60.61; P<0.001), miR-877 showed significant down regulation in blood (FC=0.22; P<0.001), and let-7 showed significant down regulation in blood (FC=0.09; P<0.001) and tumor tissue (FC=0.13; P<0.001).

Conclusion: In general, our study in an Iranian population supported the previous results. Up regulation of miR-146 was associated with aggressiveness of PTC.