Whole transcriptome sequencing of kidney tissues in lupus nephritis

Lupus nephritis (LN) is a well-known complication of SLE, which is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. mRNA and non-coding RNAs, including long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), circular RNA (circRNA) and microRNA(miRNA), could play important roles in LN onset and development. In this study, we identified differential lncRNA/miRNA/circRNA and mRNA expression profiles of renal tissues from LN patients compared with the healthy renal tissues by whole transcriptome sequencing. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to investigate the potential functions of these DE mRNAs and ncRNAs. Besides, the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks (circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network) were also constructed to understand the internal regulating relationships of these mRNAs and circRNAs. And key ceRNA relationships were verified by dual-luciferase reporter experiments. Moreover, gene function enrichment analysis showed that dysregulated RNAs were mostly related to innate and adaptive immune response, especially against virus infection. The analysis for these DE mRNAs and ncRNAs in LN patients provided a new perspective for the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of LN. Overall design: Six samples, 3 renal tissues from LN patients and 3 healthy renal tissues from cancer patients. The standard of healthy tissues was the distance from the tumors, at least 5 cm, confirmed by microscopic examination.