Next-generation sequencing facilitates quantitative analysis of wild type and diabetic db/db mice islets transcriptomes

Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) constitute an extensive fraction of the mammalian transcriptome. In this study, lncRNAs dysregulated in the islets of diabetic db/db mice were identified by high-throughput RNA sequencing. More than 1600 lncRNAs were detected using RNA sequencing, indicating that lncRNAs were abundant in islets. Among them, we found that lncRNA-Malat1 was significantly reduced in diabetic mouse islets. Further experiments suggested an involvement of lncRNA-Malat1 in lipotoxicity-induced ß-cell dysfunction. Overall design: Islet lncRNAs and mRNA profiling in db/db and db/m control mice were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina Hiseq.