Oses, MaddiMedrano, MaríaMargareto Sanchez, JavierPortillo, Maria PAguilera, Concepcion MariaAltmäe, SigneLabayen, Idoia2023-05-032023-05-032022-08-31http://hdl.handle.net/10668/19971miRNA have been proposed as potential biomarkers of metabolic diseases. To identify potential miRNA biomarkers of early metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) and/or insulin resistance (IR) in preadolescent children. A total of 70 preadolescents, aged 8.5-12 years old participated in the study. Hepatic fat was assessed by magnetic resonance imaging. Fasting blood biochemical parameters were measured and HOMA-IR calculated. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)-derived miRNA profiles associated with MAFLD (≥5.5% hepatic fat) and IR (HOMA-IR ≥2.5) were identified using untargeted high-throughput miRNAs sequencing (RNA-seq). A total of 2123 PBMC-derived miRNAs were identified in children with (21.4%) or without MAFLD. Among them, hsa-miR-143-3p, hsa-miR-142-5p and hsa-miR-660-5p were up-regulated, and p-hsa-miR-247, hsa-let-7a-5p and hsa-miR-6823-3p down-regulated. Importantly, children with MAFLD had consistently higher miR-660-5p expression levels than their peers without it (p  Our study results suggest circulating miR-660-5p as a potential biomarker of the presence of MAFLD in preadolescent children while circulating miR-320a, miR-142-3p, miR-190a-5p, miR-374a-5p and let-7 family miRNAs could serve as potential biomarkers of IR in children.enAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/MiRNAchildrenfatty liverinsulin resistancemetabolic diseasesobesityChildHumansLeukocytes, MononuclearInsulin ResistanceMicroRNAsBiomarkersLiver Diseasesresearch article36054529open access10.1111/ijpo.129662047-6310PMC9787576https://doi.org/10.1111/ijpo.12966https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9787576/pdf