Circulating miRNAs as Biomarkers for Cardiac Disease

This chapter aims to discuss recent advances of circulating miRNAs as new and promising biomarkers for cardiac disease. The elucidation of miRomes between diseased and normal cardiovascular tissues or between different cardiovascular disease types, stages and grades, gives the chance to identify the miRNAs most probably involved in cardiovascular disease and to establish new diagnostic and prognostic markers. Recent findings suggest that circulating miRNAs may be plasma biomarkers for the diagnosis of lung, colorectal, and prostate cancers. These findings have been also tested for cardiovascular disease. miRNAs are present in human plasma in a remarkably stable form that is protected from endogenous RNase activity. The levels of miRNAs in serum are reproducible and consistent among individuals of the same species. In particular, blood miR-1, miR-133, miR- 208a and miR-499 have been suggested as biomarkers of acute myocardial infarction; miR-208, miR-423-5p and some other miRNAs in the circulation are correlated with heart failure; and miR-122, miR-124 and miR-133 may be used to predict cerebral artery occlusion stroke.