ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Diabetes: Molecular Mechanisms
This article is part of the Research TopicFuture Horizons in Diabetes: Integrating Gut Microbiota, AI, and Personalized CareView all 9 articles
Association of Serum miR-99a level and Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, Serum mTOR levels in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Provisionally accepted
Yangyang Zhang1,2
Yuqiong Zuo3,4
Qian Chen1,2Yaqiang Cui2,5Yanxia Bao2,5Panpan Jiang6Jing Liu2,5
Jinxing Quan2,5Juxiang Liu2,5*- 1Ningxia Medical College, Yinchuan, China
- 2Gansu Provincial Hospital Department of Endocrinology, Lanzhou, China
- 3Gansu Provincial Hospital, Lanzhou, China
- 4Medical Record Management Department, Gansu Provincial hospital, Lanzhou, China
- 5Key Laboratory of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases of Gansu Province, Lanzhou, China
- 6The first Clinical Medical College of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
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Purpose This study was designed with the goal of exploring miR-99a expression in T2DM patients suffering from comorbid MASLD and clarifying the importance of miR-99a in this pathological context. Methods A total of 137 subjects were included in this study, including 50 T2DM patients with MASLD (T2DM +MASLD group),48 T2DM patients without MASLD (T2DM group), and 39 healthy subjects (Control group). We measured the levels of IL-6, mTOR and SOD in the serum of the subjects by ELISA. The plasma miR-99a levels was detected by RT-PCR. The correlation between serum miR-99a level and other indicators was analyzed. Results Serum miR-99a levels (median 0.79 vs 0.16 vs 0.03, P<0.001) were significantly lower in the T2DM group than the healthy population and further decreased in the T2DM with MASLD patients (P<0.001). After adjusting for age, gender, illness duration and BMI, spearman correlation analysis showed that TG, HbA1c, FPG, HOMA-IR, Hs-CRP, IL-6, HDL-C, mTOR(P<0.05) remained independently linked with serum miR-99a. And stepwise linear regression analysis showed that HbA1c, IL-6 and mTOR are independent serum miR-99a correlation variables (P<0.05). Moreover, the ROC results indicated that serum miR-99a has a high diagnostic value for T2DM with MASLD. In conclusion, serum miR-99a may be utilized as a screening biomarker for T2DM with MASLD. Conclusions These data highlight a potential role for miR-99a as a regulator of the comorbid incidence of T2DM and MASLD, suggesting that measuring the levels of miR-99a can effectively predict the risk of MASLD in those with T2DM.
Keywords: type diabetes mellitus, Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, MiR-99a, mTOR, miRNA
Received: 13 Oct 2025; Accepted: 12 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Zuo, Chen, Cui, Bao, Jiang, Liu, Quan and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Juxiang Liu, juxiang2656@126.com
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