Identification of key lncRNAs in colorectal cancer progression based on associated protein–protein interaction analysis

As the third most commonly diagnosed malignancy in most parts of the world, colorectal cancer (CRC) caused more than 600,000 deaths (approximately 8%) of all cancer deaths [1]. Due to lack of oncogenesis-associated molecular biomarkers, the overall survival time of CRC patients is still not improved remarkably after a mass of progress in clinical treatment for CRC [2]. Thus, to develop novel treatments of CRC, a more clear understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying the development and progression of CRC is urgently needed and new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers are essential to be identified.

Endogenous cellular RNAs with lengths longer than 200 nucleotides and lack of obvious open reading frame (ORF) are the definition of long noncoding RNAs (also known as lncRNAs), which are lately discovered to be RNAs and make up 80% of noncoding RNAs [3, 4]. More than 8000 lncRNA genes are identified within 4 years, and the number of human lncRNAs are estimated ranging from 10,000 to 20,000 [5]. Although accumulating evidences showed that lncRNAs have been correlated to cancer progression including CRC, the functions of most lncRNAs are still unknown [3]. Concretely, lncRNA DANCR is a prognostic factor for both overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in CRC [6, 7]; upregulation of lncRNA FTX promoted growth, invasion, and migration in CRC cells [8, 9]; and the expression of lncRNA HOTAIR is associated with tumor invasion and radio-sensitivity suggested its potential role in CRC diagnostics and therapeutics [10, 11].

In this study, we aimed to identify differentially expressed lncRNAs and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in CRC by analyzing a cohort of previously published datasets: GSE64857. To provide novel information about molecular mechanisms and functional roles of lncRNAs, we conducted protein–protein interaction analysis in CRC and found that several lncRNAs may be associated with the tumorigenesis of different CRC subtypes.

The molecular mechanism involved in the CRC progression remained unclear. Therefore, it was critically important to investigate the biological mechanisms of CRC. In the present study, we identified the significantly differentially expressed mRNAs and lncRNAs between stage II and stage III CRC by using GSE64857. GO and KEGG pathway analyses showed that differentially expressed lncRNAs were involved in regulating CRC progression. Our analysis also revealed that the function of co-expressed mRNAs related to PGM5-AS1, TTTY10, and LOC100129973 could be connected by PPI.

CRC was one of the deadliest malignancies due to its lack of biomarkers for early diagnosis and efficient therapeutic strategies [14]. Recently, studies had shown that lncRNAs played key roles in tumorigenesis, cancer progression, and metastasis. Increasingly, reports also demonstrated that lncRNAs’ expression could be deregulated in human cancers, including CRC [15‐17]. In the present study, we identified the significantly differentially expressed mRNAs and lncRNAs between stage II and stage III CRC using a publicly available gene expression data, GSE64857. From the microarray expression profiles, we identified 1472 DEGs (806 up- and 666 downregulated) and 46 differentially expressed lncRNAs (24 up- and 22 downregulated) in stage III CRC compared to stage II CRC samples altogether.

One challenge in predicting the functions of lncRNAs is that lncRNA could not be catalogued by GO and KEGG pathways analyses directly. According to the report of Guttman et al., one approach to classify the putative function of ncRNAs uses “guilt-by-association” [18]. In the previous reports, combination co-expression with GO analysis were widely used to predict lncRNAs’ functions in triple-negative breast cancer [19] and prostate cancer [20]. To predict the functions of the differentially expressed lncRNAs, we first constructed co-expression networks and performed GO and KEGG analyses for differentially expressed lncRNAs according to Guttman’s report. According to the GO analysis, differentially expressed lncRNAs were enriched in signal transduction, cell adhesion, development, transcription, cell differentiation, and cell proliferation. KEGG pathway analysis revealed that differentially expressed lncRNAs mainly participated in regulating focal adhesion, cell adhesion molecules, calcium signaling pathway, and TGF-beta signaling pathway.

Recently, several reports had shown that altered expression of lncRNAs may have important mechanisms of CRC progression. A few lncRNAs including DANCR [11], FTX [9, 15], and HOTAIR were significantly associated with the progression of CRC [21, 22]. However, the molecular mechanisms and functional roles underlying the lncRNAs in transformation of CRC remain largely unknown. In this study, we identified three upregulated lncRNAs (LOC100129973, PGM5-AS1, and TTTY10) could widely co-express with DEGs. lncRNA LOC100129973 was reported to suppress apoptosis in vascular endothelial cells by targeting miR-4707-5p and miR-4767 [23]. However, the molecular function of LOC100129973, PGM5-AS1, and TTTY10C remains unclear in CRC. Here, to explore their molecular mechanisms, we analyzed the co-expressed mRNAs of these lncRNAs and examined whether the mRNAs were connected by PPIs. We found that PGM5-AS1 was associated with the regulation of transcription, signal transduction, and cell adhesion. Interestingly, we found PGM5-AS1 may regulate cell adhesion by effecting PGM5. PGM5 was a kind of phosphotransferase involved in the interconversion of glucose-1-phosphate and glucose-6-phosphate. In CRC, PGM5 was also reported as a potential protein marker of colorectal adenoma [24]. TTTY10 was identified to be involved in regulating cell adhesion, transcription, signal transduction, development, and cell differentiation by regulating FOXO1 [25], SLIT1, and SLIT3 [26]. We observed that LOC100129973 was associated with immune response, signal transduction, cell adhesion, regulation of transcription, and anti-apoptosis and suggested that LOC100129973 was involved in regulating CRC proliferation. To evaluate possible prognostic value of PGM5-AS1, TTTY10, and LOC100129973, we analyzed the TCGA data and found high PGM5-AS1 expression levels were associated with worse overall survival in CRC cancer.

In conclusion, we identified differentially expressed lncRNAs between stage II and stage III CRC for the first time screened by microarray. We found that 46 lncRNAs were dysregulated in CRC totally. GO and KEGG pathway analyses showed that differentially expressed lncRNAs were involved in regulating signal transduction, cell adhesion, cell differentiation, focal adhesion, and cell adhesion molecules. Three lncRNAs (LOC100129973, PGM5-AS1, and TTTY10) were identified to widely co-express with DEGs. We also constructed lncRNA-associated PPI in CRC. Of note, we observed that high PGM5-AS1 expression levels were associated with worse overall survival in CRC cancer. We believed that this study would provide novel potential therapeutic and prognostic targets for CRC.