Altered expression of long non-coding and messenger RNAs in diabetic nephropathy following treatment with rosiglitazone

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is characterized by metabolic disorder and inflammation. However, the regulatory effects that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have on the pathogenesis of DN and on the efficacy of rosiglitazone treatment has yet to be clearly defined. Herein, we performed unbiased RNA sequencing to characterize the transcriptomic profiles in db/db diabetic mouse model with or without rosiglitazone treatment that served to improve the phenotypes of DN. Differential expression analysis revealed that those genes that had their expression restored following treatment with rosiglitazone are likely involved in protection against DN. Our data elucidate the novel renoprotective molecular mechanism of PPARγ agonists and propose lncRNA targets for diabetic nephropathy treatment. Diabetic (db/db) mice were randomly divided into two groups and treated with 20 mg/kg/day of rosiglitazone (dbR group) or with a vehicle (dbdb group) by gavage for 8 weeks (from 7-15 weeks of age), respectively. Db/m littermates (control group) were also treated with the vehicle. Total RNA from kidney cortex of each mouse was sequenced (3 replicates per group) on illumina HiSeq X Ten platform.