Transcriptome interrogation of human myometrium identifies differentially expressed sense-antisense pairs of protein-coding and long non-coding RNA genes in spontaneous labor at term

Abstract

Objective: To identify differentially expressed long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) genes in human myometrium in women with spontaneous labor at term.Materials and methods: Myometrium was obtained from women undergoing cesarean deliveries who were not in labor (n = 19) and women in spontaneous labor at term (n = 20). RNA was extracted and profiled using an Illumina® microarray platform. We have used computational approaches to bound the extent of long non-coding RNA representation on this platform, and to identify co-differentially expressed and correlated pairs of long non-coding RNA genes and protein-coding genes sharing the same genomic loci.Results: We identified co-differential expression and correlation at two genomic loci that contain coding-lncRNA gene pairs: SOCS2--AK054607 and LMCD1--NR_024065 in women in spontaneous labor at term. This co-differential expression and correlation was validated by qRT-PCR, an experimental method completely independent of the microarray analysis. Intriguingly, one of the two lncRNA genes differentially expressed in term labor had a key genomic structure element, a splice site, that lacked evolutionary conservation beyond primates.Conclusions: We provide, for the first time, evidence for coordinated differential expression and correlation of cis-encoded antisense lncRNAs and protein-coding genes with known as well as novel roles in pregnancy in the myometrium of women in spontaneous labor at term.