Forensic Context

A study in mice demonstrated that the miR-129-5p is down-regulated in the plasma of methamphetamine-dependent patients and negatively correlates with anxiety scores [Xu et al. DOI:10.1007/S10571-023-01323-X]. In a separate investigation in mice and human patients, the miR-129-5p was found to be poorly expressed in the serum of individuals with alcoholic steatohepatitis, and its experimental elevation in ethanol-induced mouse models suppressed lipid metabolism, inflammation, hepatocyte apoptosis, and liver fibrosis [Ye et al. DOI:10.1186/S12967-020-02577-5]. A study in mice demonstrated that the miR-129-5p is upregulated in brain-derived extracellular vesicles following traumatic brain injury and, as part of a multiplexed miRNA panel processed with machine learning, enabled accurate diagnosis of injury state with 99% accuracy in a blinded test set [Ko et al. DOI:10.1039/c8lc00672e].