Screening and functional studies of long non-coding RNA in protecting ischemic acute kidney injury by Astragaloside IV

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression profile of long non-coding RNAs(lncRNAs) in acute kidney injury (AKI) rats upon astragaloside IV(AS-IV) treatment. Methods Eight male SD rats were selected and randomly divided into two groups.AKI model group(group 1): 4 rats were subjected to ischemia-reperfusion(I/R); AS-Ⅳ pretreatment group (group 2): 4 rats were orally administered AS-Ⅳ for 7 days prior to I/R.Renal tissues were collected after I/R treatment of 24h, total RNA was extracted from renal tissues and tested for quality.Sequencing experiments were carried out after being qualified.The threshold set for up-and down-regulated genes was a fold change(group1/group2)≥2 and P≤0.05.Afterwards, GO analysis and KEGG analysis were used to determine the roles that these differentially expressed mRNAs played in these GO terms or pathways. Results Two hundred and thirty-two lncRNAs were differentially expressed(127 lncRNAs were up-regulated and 105 lncRNAs were down-regulated). Three hundred and forty-one mRNAs were differentially expressed(178 mRNAs were up-regulated and 163 mRNAs were down-regulated). GO analysis indicated that differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly involved in biological processes such as nucleosome assembly, chromatin assembly, nucleosome organization, chromatin assembly or disassembly and DNA conformation change.GO analysis indicated that differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly involved in cellular components such as nucleosome, protein-DNA complex, nuclear chromatin, chromatin and nuclear nucleosome.GO analysis indicated that differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly involved in molecular functions such as protein heterodimerization activity, protein dimerization activity, DNA binding, nucleic acid binding.Signal pathway analysis indicated that lncRNAs and mRNAs were involved in systemic lupus erythematosus, alcoholism and viral carcinogenesis. Conclusion LncRNAs expression differed significantly in renal tissues of AKI model group and AS-Ⅳ preconditioning group.Study of the biological functions and pathways of these lncRNAs indicated that they may be involved in the mechanism of AS-Ⅳ ameliorated ischemic acute renal injury. Key words: Astragaloside Ⅳ; Acute kidney injury; Reperfusion injury; 5' Untranslated regions; Long non-coding RNA; Intervention studies; Disease models, animal; Rats, sprague-dawley