Whole transcriptomic landscape and regulatory network of High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema

High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) is a type of idiopathic non-cardiogenic pulmonary oedema at high altitude with a severe clinical course and high mortality rate. Therefore, this study aims to investigate transcriptomic signatures in HAPE based on whole-transcriptome sequencing. We identified the differential expression of mRNAs, miRNAs, circRNAs, lncRNAs, alternative splicing (AS) events, gene fusions and novel transcripts, constructed ceRNA networks and immune cell infiltration landscapes, and annotated the biological functions of target genes based on bioinformatics analysis. This study will clarify the differential expression of coding and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in HAPE, identify novel transcripts and genes, increase our understanding of the transcriptional characteristics of HAPE, elucidate disease-associated pathways and biological processes, and provide underlying mechanisms for HAPE diagnosis and treatment. Overall design: We identified differentially expressed candidate mRNAs, miRNAs, circRNAs, and lncRNAs in a discovery set (6 HAPE patients and 6 healthy controls) using RNA high-throughput sequencing. All of the participants and health care volunteers were Han Chinese people between the ages of 18 and 65 who had travelled to Tibet.