Transcriptome effects mediated by forced repression of LncRNA BACE1-AS in HAOEC cells

Recently, high-throughput studies identified tens of thousands of sites transcribed to produce transcripts with little protein-coding potential. The function of these transcripts remains largely obscure and their relevance to cardiovascular disease is mostly undefined. Many non-protein-coding transcripts belong to the group of Long non coding RNAs (LncRNAs), which are arbitrarily classified according to their length >200 nt. They control protein targeting to genomic loci, epigenetic silencing and serve as scaffolds for multiple proteins. We measured the expression of 83 diseases-related LncRNAs in biopsies from heart failure patients and in controls. We found 15 lncRNAs modulated in HF samples. To explore the functional relevance of BACE1-AS, we investigated the effects of its forced repression on transcriptome. BACE1-AS were blocked by LNA-GAPmers (Exiqon) in human aorta endothelial cells (HAOEC). We measured, by lllumina HumanHT-12 v4 BeadChip platform, the transcriptome changes induced by the forced repression of LncRNAs expression compared to a negative control (scrambled sequences).