In this article, the authors studied the signature of 87 urinary miRNAs in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients, selected the most dysregulated and determined statistically significant differences in their expression between controls, ambulant (A) and non-ambulant (NA) DMD patients, and patients on different corticosteroid regimens. Their results revealed that miR-29c-3p was significantly downregulated in A DMD patients while miR-23b-3p and miR-21-5p were significantly downregulated in NA DMD patients compared with age-matched controls. They conclude that miR-29c-3p, miR-23b-3p and miR-21-5p are promising novel non-invasive biomarkers for DMD, and miR-29c-3p levels are differentially affected by different steroid regimens, supporting the antifibrotic effect of steroid therapy.
