Sex differences are widely observed under various circumstances ranging from physiolog- ical processes to therapeutic responses, and a myriad of sex-biased genes have been identified. In recent years, transcriptomic d...Sex differences are widely observed under various circumstances ranging from physiolog- ical processes to therapeutic responses, and a myriad of sex-biased genes have been identified. In recent years, transcriptomic datasets of microRNAs （miRNAs）, an important class of non-coding RNAs, become increasingly accessible. However, comprehensive analysis of sex difference in miRNA expression has not been performed. Here, we identified the differentially-expressed miR- NAs between males and females by examining the transcriptomic datasets available in public data- bases and conducted a systemic analysis of their biological characteristics. Consequently, we identified 73 female-biased miRNAs （FmiRs） and 163 male-biased miRNAs （MmiRs） across four tissues including brain, colorectal mucosa, peripheral blood, and cord blood. Our results suggest that compared to FmiRs, MmiRs tend to be clustered in the human genome and exhibit higher evolutionary rate, higher expression tissue specificity, and lower disease spectrum width. In addition.functional enrichment analysis of miRNAs show that FmiR genes are significantly associated with metabolism process and cell cycle process, whereas MmiR genes tend to be enriched for functions like histone modification and circadian rhythm. In all, the identification and analysis of sex-biased miRNAs together could provide new insights into the biological differences between females and males and facilitate the exploration of sex-biased disease susceptibility and therapy.展开更多
Long noncoding RNAs(lncRNAs)play important roles in human diseases including vascular disease.Given the large number of lncRNAs,however,whether the majority of them are associated with vascular disease remains unknown...Long noncoding RNAs(lncRNAs)play important roles in human diseases including vascular disease.Given the large number of lncRNAs,however,whether the majority of them are associated with vascular disease remains unknown.For this purpose,here we present a genomic location based bioinformatics method to predict the lncRNAs associated with vascular disease.We applied the presented method to globally screen the human lncRNAs potentially involved in vascular disease.As a result,we predicted 3043 putative vascular disease associated lncRNAs.To test the accuracy of the method,we selected 10 lncRNAs predicted to be implicated in proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells(VSMCs)for further experimental validation.The results confirmed that eight of the 10 lncRNAs(80%)are validated.This result suggests that the presented method has a reliable prediction performance.Finally,the presented bioinformatics method and the predicted vascular disease associated lncRNAs together may provide helps for not only better understanding of the roles of lncRNAs in vascular disease but also the identification of novel molecules for the diagnosis and therapy of vascular disease.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81670462 and 81422006) to QCthe Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities of China (Grant No. BMU2017YJ004) to YZ (Yuan Zhou)
文摘Sex differences are widely observed under various circumstances ranging from physiolog- ical processes to therapeutic responses, and a myriad of sex-biased genes have been identified. In recent years, transcriptomic datasets of microRNAs （miRNAs）, an important class of non-coding RNAs, become increasingly accessible. However, comprehensive analysis of sex difference in miRNA expression has not been performed. Here, we identified the differentially-expressed miR- NAs between males and females by examining the transcriptomic datasets available in public data- bases and conducted a systemic analysis of their biological characteristics. Consequently, we identified 73 female-biased miRNAs （FmiRs） and 163 male-biased miRNAs （MmiRs） across four tissues including brain, colorectal mucosa, peripheral blood, and cord blood. Our results suggest that compared to FmiRs, MmiRs tend to be clustered in the human genome and exhibit higher evolutionary rate, higher expression tissue specificity, and lower disease spectrum width. In addition.functional enrichment analysis of miRNAs show that FmiR genes are significantly associated with metabolism process and cell cycle process, whereas MmiR genes tend to be enriched for functions like histone modification and circadian rhythm. In all, the identification and analysis of sex-biased miRNAs together could provide new insights into the biological differences between females and males and facilitate the exploration of sex-biased disease susceptibility and therapy.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(91339106)National High Technology Research and Development Program of China(2014AA021102)
文摘Long noncoding RNAs(lncRNAs)play important roles in human diseases including vascular disease.Given the large number of lncRNAs,however,whether the majority of them are associated with vascular disease remains unknown.For this purpose,here we present a genomic location based bioinformatics method to predict the lncRNAs associated with vascular disease.We applied the presented method to globally screen the human lncRNAs potentially involved in vascular disease.As a result,we predicted 3043 putative vascular disease associated lncRNAs.To test the accuracy of the method,we selected 10 lncRNAs predicted to be implicated in proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells(VSMCs)for further experimental validation.The results confirmed that eight of the 10 lncRNAs(80%)are validated.This result suggests that the presented method has a reliable prediction performance.Finally,the presented bioinformatics method and the predicted vascular disease associated lncRNAs together may provide helps for not only better understanding of the roles of lncRNAs in vascular disease but also the identification of novel molecules for the diagnosis and therapy of vascular disease.
