Omani research identifies COVID-19 specific miRNAs as potential therapeutic target

Muscat: Among the many research projects on the Coronavirus pandemic, funded by the COVID-19 Research Programme of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the one that stands out and is acutely contextual is ‘Identifying COVID-19 Specific miRNAs as a Potential Therapeutic Target’.

Principal investigator Dr. Zuhair Al Sulti, Head of Pharmacy Department at Al Nahdha Hospital at the Ministry of Health and Researcher at Sultan Qaboos University, and his team has aimed to isolate miRNAs and exosomes from COVID-19 patients using serum collected from mild, moderate and critically ill patients and compared whole miRNA profile of COVID-19 patients with profile of normal control subjects. They have identified COVID-19 specific miRNAs, evaluated the expression levels of COVID-19 specific miRNAs, investigated the RNA and protein targets of these identified miRNAs and studied the signalling pathway of the identified miRNAs.

Dr. Zuhair stressed that the study is important as it allowed the team to identify any deregulated miRNA or any uncharacterised miRNA that could be associated with disease progression and deterioration in COVID-19 infected patients. He added that the findings of this project would help the team identify novel uncharacterised miRNA targets that could be tested as a potential therapeutic target among the infected patients and prevent the deterioration in their health and possible death.

Dr. Zuhair and his team managed to identify a few potential miRNAs that were deregulated in the severely ill patients in comparison to the other patient groups. Out of these miRNAs, one was clearly associated with the activation of inflammatory signalling pathway which is linked with the release of inflammatory cytokines and the activation of cytokine storm, which is the main cause of complications in COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, the team managed to identify a potential therapeutic target that would lead them to carry this study forward and test this target using Anti-MiRs that could be developed as a treatment.

The COVID Research Programme was launched by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in March 2020 to provide researchers the technical and financial support to enable them conduct research to find out evidence-based solutions for the current global challenge as well as fostering multi-sectoral collaboration.