Brno, Czech Republic, June 19, 2019 – BioVendor – Laboratorni medicina, a.s. announced today that Biovendor's miRNA product development team published a peer-reviewed article where they focused on clinical applicability of modern microRNA determination methods. The article, entitled "Evaluation of miRNA detection methods regarding their analytical characteristic necessary for clinical utilization" will be published in the June 2019 issue of the BioTechniques journal, online on May 24, 2019. The authors introduce existing and innovative methods for the measurement of microRNA biomarkers and evaluate key analytical parameters of three of them.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNA molecules that play an important regulatory role in gene translation through silencing or degradation of target mRNAs. The use of circulating miRNA diagnostic, or prognostic biomarkers is very promising. In the near future, there will be great effort to get miRNA biomarkers into clinical practice rising need for methods optimization according to clinical laboratory requirements.
The paper discusses the lack of proper characterization of the current most frequently used RT-qPCR method. Well established RT-qPCR is compared with two novel reverse transcription-free techniques, the SplintR-qPCR using hybridization and ligation step followed by qPCR, and miREIA (microRNA Enzyme Immunoassay) where a hybridization step is followed by the detection with a monoclonal antibody specific to DNA/RNA hybrids. RT-qPCR remains the most sensitive method having a place in miRNA measurement. However, SplintR-qPCR and miREIA technologies are more robust and accurate - and seems to be more suitable for clinical diagnostic routine.