The Importance of Decreased Expression Levels of BAT5 and IL21R-AS1 in Circulating Leukocytes of Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in cellular processes and disease pathogenesis. In this study, we aimed to show the relationships and possible effects of the expression level of two lncRNAs in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in circulating leukocytes. Methods and Results: In this case-control study, the relationship between AMI and expression levels of two candidate lncRNAs, called BAT5 (HLA-B-Associated Transcript 5) and IL21R-AS1 (IL21R antisense RNA 1), in 231 patients who underwent percutaneous coronary interventions were investigated. Expression levels of lncRNAs in leukocytes were measured by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). The m6A modification regions and subcellular localizations of these lncRNAs were predicted by in silico analysis. Routine biochemical and immunoassay analyzes were performed on Roche Cobas 8000/e701 integrated automated analyzer with their original kits. Ranked ANCOVA tests were used to compare expression levels of lncRNAs between groups after adjusting for gender and use of cardiovascular drugs. The crude and adjusted expression levels of BAT5 and IL21R-AS1 in leukocytes of AMI patients (n=128) were found to decrease compared to the control cases (n=103) (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively). In addition, these lncRNAs were negatively correlated with cardiac biomarkers and serum electrolytes in each group (p<0.015). The intracellular functional localization of both lncRNAs is non-nuclear. The number of high confidence m6A modification regions of BAT5 and IL21R-AS1 transcripts was determined as 5 and 4, respectively. Conclusion: This study indicates that the decreased expression levels of BAT5 and IL21R-AS1 are associated with the occurrence of acute myocardial infarction in individuals.