Identification of a long non-coding RNA as a novel biomarker and potential therapeutic target for atrial fibrillation

We identified 177 lncRNAs and 153 mRNAs that were differentially expressed (≥ 2-fold change), indicating that many lncRNAs are significantly upregulated or downregulated in AF. Among these, NONHSAT040387 and NONHSAT098586 were the most up-regulated and downregulated lncRNAs, and were selected for validation via quantitative PCR. GO analysis and KEGG pathway were applied to exploring potential lncRNAs function, identifying several pathways were alerted in atrial fibrillation pathogenesis. we investigated the expression patterns of lncRNAs and mRNAs from atrial fibrillation with Agilent Human lncRNA array V4.0 (4 × 180 K), which include 78,243 human lncRNAs and 30,215 coding transcripts.