Transcriptome-Wide Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes and Long Non-coding RNAs in Nitroglycerin Tolerant Rat Aorta

We investigated comprehensive transcriptomic change in rat aorta tolerant to nitroglycerin (GTN) with a focus on lncRNAs. We employed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technique and identified 22788 genes (RPKM > 0.1, 14720 protein coding and 4408 lncRNA). And 115 differentially expressed (DE) mRNAs (65 upregulated and 50 downregulated) and 104 DE lncRNAs (56 upregulated and 48 downregulated) were found in GTN-tolerant aortas. Many DE mRNAs and cis-target genes of DE lncRNAs have been implicated in regulation of blood pressure or cell contraction. Collectively, these results suggested that dysregulated mRNAs and lncRNAs contribute to the development of GTN tolerance and might be used as novel potential targets to prevent and reverse GTN tolerance. Aorta mRNA and lncRNA profiles of 12-week rats treated with nitroglycerin and solvent for 3 d were generated by deep sequencing, in quadruple, using Illumina Hiseq 4000.