Construction and analysis of a lncRNA‑miRNA‑mRNA network based on competitive endogenous RNA reveals functional lncRNAs in diabetic cardiomyopathy

Abstract

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a major cause of mortality in patients with diabetes, particularly those with type 2 diabetes. Long non-coding ENAs (lncENAs), including terminal differentiation-induced lncENA (TINCE), myocardial infarction-associated transcript (MIAT) and H19, serve a key role in the regulation of DCM. MicroENAs (miENAs/miEs) can inhibit the expression of mENA at the post-transcriptional level, whereas lncENAs can mask the inhibitory effects of miENAs on mENA. Together, miENAs and lncENAs form a competitive endogenous non-coding ENA (ceENA) network that regulates the occurrence and development of various diseases. However, the regulatory role of lncENAs in DCM is unclear. In this study, a background network containing mENAs, miENAs and lncENAs was constructed using starBase and a regulatory network of DCM was screened using Cytoscape. A functional lncENA, X‑inactive specific transcript (XIST), was identified in the disease network and the main miENAs (miE-424-5p and miE-497-5p) that are regulated by XIST were further screened to obtain the ceENA regulatory network of DCM. In conclusion, the results of this study revealed that lncENAs may serve an important role in DCM and provided novel insights into the pathogenesis of DCM.