Bioinformatics Analysis of Altered Lncrnas in Peripheral Blood Molecular Cells from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) Patients

Objectives: Based on the prior studies, altered lncRNAs in peripheral blood Molecular Cells (PBMC) from depression patients were chosen to perform informatics analysis for ln-cRNA target gene prediction and functional annotation. Methods:Microarray was first used to screen dys regulated lncRNAs in the PBMCs of MDD patients, of which 10 lncRNAs were selected for quantitative real-time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) study, as well as bioinformatics analysis.Results: According to microarray results, the top 10 lncRNAs with highest expression changes were chosen for further validation with qRT-PCR, 9 lncRNAs demonstrate significant down-regulation in expression levels (TCONS_L2_00001212, NONHSAT102891, TCONS_00019174, ENST00000566208, NONHSAG045500, ENST00000591189, ENST00000517573, NONHSAT034045, NONHSAT142707) (P < 0.05).lncRNA target gene prediction and functional annotation analysis showed a significant enrichments in several gene ontology (GO) biological process and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathways associated with nervous system and brain functions, suggesting that the differentially expressed lncRNAs may be involved in mechanism of MDD.Cytoscape network chart indicated that TCONS_L2_00001212, NONHSAT102891, TCONS_00019174, ENST00000566208, NONHSAG045500, ENST00000591189, ENST00000517573, NONHSAT034045 and NONHSAT142707 also provide clues for the association of lncRNAs with MDD.Conclusions: Altered expression of lncRNAs (TCONS_ L2_00001212, NONHSAT102891, TCONS_00019174, ENST00000566208, NONHSAG045500, ENST00000591189, ENST00000517573, NONHSAT034045 and NON-HSAT142707) might be involved in MDD pathogenesis and may serve as noninvasive biomarker for MDD diagnosis.