Mitochondrial long noncoding RNAs as blood based biomarkers for cardiac remodeling in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a hereditary heart disease with a high risk for sudden cardiac death in young people. As a subtype, hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) additionally has a left ventricular outflow gradient, showing stronger symptoms and requires a different treatment compared with hypertrophic nonobstructive cardiomyopathy (HNCM). In this study our aim was to investigate the regulation of mitochondrial and cardiac remodeling associated long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in blood of patients affected with HOCM and HNCM. We included 28 HNCM, 57 HOCM, and 26 control inviduals. Already known mitochondrial and cardiac remodeling associated lncRNAs uc004cos.4, uc004coz.1, uc004cov.4, uc011mfi.2, uc022bqw.1, uc022bqs.1, and uc022bqu.1 were amplified in serum of these patients and correlated with clinical parameters. Long noncoding RNAs uc004cov.4 and uc022bqu.1 were significantly increased in patients with HOCM but not in patients with HNCM. With the use of receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, lncRNAs uc004cov.4 and uc022bqu.1 were able to identify HOCM patients. In our study we evidenced that the specific mitochondrial long noncoding RNAs uc004cov.4 and uc022bqu.1 were upregulated in patients with HOCM and they were also able to identify HOCM and could be developed as useful clinical biomarkers in the future.