Long non-coding RNAs are central regulators of the IL-1b-induced inflammatory response in human lung fibroblasts

There is accumulating evidence to indicate that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are important regulators of the inflammatory response. In this report, we have employed next generation sequencing to identify 14 lncRNAs that are differentially expressed in human lung fibroblasts following the induction of inflammation using interleukin-1b (IL-1b). Knockdown of the two most highly expressed lncRNAs, IL7AS and MIR3142HG, showed that IL7AS negatively regulated IL-6 release whilst MIR3142HG was required for IL-8 and CCL2 release. Parallel studies in fibroblasts derived from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis showed similar increases in IL7AS levels, that also negatively regulate IL-6 release. In contrast, IL-1b-induced MIR3142HG expression was reduced by 8-fold in IPF fibroblasts, with the consequence being that MIR3142 knockdown showed no effect upon IL-8 and CCL2 release. In summary, we have catalogued those lncRNAs that are differential expression following IL-1b-activation of human lung fibroblasts and shown that these regulate the inflammatory response. Total RNA was extracted from lung fibroblast exposed to either buffer (controls) or 3 ng/ml of IL-1b for 6h and subjected to paired-end and stranded 75bp sequencing using the Illumina HiSeq4000