Integrated bioinformatics and validation to discover lncRNAs related to immunity and inflammation in polycystic ovary syndrome

Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrine disorders associated with immunity and inflammation. However, the underlying immune/inflammation-related molecular characteristics of PCOS, such as miRNAs, lncRNAs remain unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the immune-related biomarkers in PCOS based on the competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism. We analyzed the differential expression (DE)-mRNAs, DE-miRNAs and DE-LncRNA based on datasets GSE155489 and GSE138572. Functional enrichment analysis was performed on immune/inflammationrelated pathways of DE-mRNAs. Furthermore, an immune/inflammation-related ceRNA network was constructed based on the DE-mRNAs, DE-miRNAs and DE-lncRNAs. For further validation, qRT-PCR was used to detect the expression level of the upregulated candidate LncRNAs. In addition, receiver operating characteristics (ROC) were constructed to evaluate the diagnostic value of the LncRNAs. We identified 5 lncRNAs as the potential immune/inflammation-related biomarkers of PCOS, including KCTD21-AS1, SNHG12, CRNDE, FAM157C and AC111152.2. AC111152.2 has the best performance with an area of 0.831. Our results provided novel insights into the discovery of immune/inflammation-related genetic biomarkers for PCOS. However, their specific regulatory mechanisms still need to be further studied.