Downregulation of IFNG‐AS1 and UCHL1‐AS1 in Peripheral Blood Cells of Multiple Sclerosis Patients: IFNG‐AS1 as a Candidate Diagnostic Biomarker

Abstract

Background Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative and inflammatory disease affecting gray and white matter in the brain. Due to the highly variable presentation of MS, making a reliable long‐term diagnosis based solely on initial clinical findings is extremely challenging. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown in recent research to have a role as prospective biomarkers that may offer data to forecast the onset and course of disease. Methods A total of 100 healthy controls and 120 MS patients with 98 relapsing‐remitting (RR), 10 primary progressive (PP), and 12 secondary progressive (SP) cases were included in the blood sample collection. Gene expression was assessed with quantitative real‐time PCR. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was employed to evaluate the potential for diagnostic analysis of lncRNA levels. Results The expressions of IFNG‐AS1 and UCHL1‐AS1 were found to be significantly decreased (p < 0.0001) in patients compared to the control group. After adjustment for age using ANCOVA, IFNG‐AS1 expression remained significantly lower in MS patients than in healthy controls (p < 0.0001). IFNG‐AS1 may be considered a potential biomarker for MS diagnosis (AUC = 0.838). Conclusion IFNG‐AS1 demonstrates promising diagnostic potential for MS, whereas UCHL1‐AS1 shows only modest discriminatory value. However, these findings are preliminary and require further validation with functional studies to confirm clinical utility.