Differentially expressed long non-coding RNAs and mRNAs in DRG of bone cancer pain and sham group rats based on microarray and bioinformatic analysis

Objective: The diagnostic roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and mRNAs in bone cancer pain are still not well defined. We aimed to identify differentially expressed DRG mRNAs in bone cancer pain and sham group rats systematically. Methods: Expression profile of mRNAs in DRG from bone cancer pain and sham group rats was analyzed by microarray assay. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway based approaches were used to investigate biological functions and signaling pathways affected by the differentially expressed mRNAs. GPR160 was selected for validation using Real-Time PCR. Results: Compared with sham group, a total of 807 differentially expressed mRNAs were revealed by heatmap and volcano-plot, including up-regulation in 720 and down-regulation in 87 (fold change ≥ 2 and P < 0.05), respectively. Pathways analysis based on upregulated mRNAs were mainly involved in antigen processing and presentation and phagosome pathway (P < 0.05). We first reported differentially expressed mRNAs in bone cancer pain and sham group rats systemically. Combined with the published dataset, we identified several differentially expressed mRNAs which might to be diagnostic or prognostic markers. The biological functions of those mRNAs should be further validated. Taken together, this study provided the basis for future treatment of bone cancer pain. 3 cases of bone cancer pain rats and 4 sham group were enrolled in this study. Ipsilateral DRG was collected from each rats followed by centrifugation at 1,000 g for 10 min at 4°C. then transferred to sterile polypropylene tubes on ice and centrifuged again at 10,000g for 10 min at 4°C to remove cell debris.