Long Noncoding RNA Expression Signatures of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Revealed by Microarray

Abstract Objective This study is aimed at observing the role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the pathogenesis of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). Methods LncRNA and mRNA expression signatures of AAA tissues and normal abdominal aortic tissues (NT) were analyzed by microarray and further verified by Real-time quantitative reverse-transcription PCR (qRT-PCR). The lncRNAs-mRNAs targeting relationships were identified using computational analysis. The effect of lnc-ARG on 5-lipoxygenase ( ALOX5 ) expression was tested in HeLa cells. Results Differential expressions of 3,688 lncRNAs and 3,007 mRNAs were identified between AAA and NT tissues. Moreover, 1,284 differentially expressed long intergenic noncoding RNAs and 206 differentially expressed enhancer-like lncRNAs adjacent to protein-coding genes were discerned by bioinformatics analysis. Some differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs between AAA and normal tissue samples were further verified using qRT-PCR. A co-expression network of coding and noncoding genes was constructed based on the correlation analysis between the differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs. In addition, the lnc-ARG located within the upstream of ALOX5 was sorted as a noncoding transcript by analyzing the protein-coding potential using computational analysis. Furthermore, we found that lnc-ARG can decrease the mRNA level of ALOX5 and reactive oxygen species production in HeLa cells. Conclusion This study revealed new lncRNA candidates are related to the pathogenesis of AAA.