Comprehensive Analysis of a Competing Endogenous RNA Co-Expression Network in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Purpose: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the main cause of mortality world widely. Non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and associated competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) networks were recently proved to lead to mRNA gene expression down-regulation but were still unclear in COPD. This study aims to investigate and elucidate the mechanisms underlying the involvement of ceRNA co-expression networks in COPD pathogenesis.Methods: Obtained expression signature of data from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and compared the differentially expression of mRNAs and miRNAs between COPD patients and healthy smokers. Predicted the miRNA-lncRNA and miRNA- mRNA interaction using online library and employed CIBERSORT to measure the proportions of the 22 immune cells in the COPD and control groups.Results: Established a ceRNA-network comprising 11 lncRNAs, 5 miRNAs, and 16 mRNAs. Using the weighted correlation network analysis method, we identified hub genes and hub miRNAs and obtained one core sub-network, XIST, FGD5-AS1, KCNQ1OT1, HOXA11-AS, LINC00667, H19, PRKCQ-AS1, NUTM2A-AS1/has-mir-454-3p/ZNF678, PRRG4. COPD patients had different proportions of immune cells than controls, and these variations were associated with the magnitude of pulmonary function parameters.Conclusion: The ceRNA-network, particularly the core sub-network, may be a putative goal for COPD, in which specific immune cells were involved.