Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 3 pp 4182—4198
Comprehensive analysis of lncRNAs N6-methyladenosine modification in colorectal cancer
- 1 The Gastroenterology Tumor and Microenvironment Laboratory, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, PR China
Received: July 11, 2020 Accepted: November 30, 2020 Published: January 20, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202383How to Cite
Copyright: © 2021 Zuo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and their N6-methyladenosine (M6A) modifications are involved in cancer occurrence and development.
Methods: lncRNA M6A modification in colorectal cancer (CRC) was comprehensively analyzed for the first time.
Results: M6A levels of lnRNAs in CRC tissues were higher than those in tumor-adjacent normal tissues. A total of 8,332 M6A peaks were detected in 6,690 lncRNAs in CRC tissues. Approximately 91% of the modified lncRNAs had unique M6A modification peaks. A total of 383 lncRNAs were differentially methylated in CRC, of which 48.24% had a length of 1-1,000 bp. Most of these were located on chromosomes 1, 2, 7, 11, 16 and 19; 42.3% were within a sense-overlapping exon. RNA sequencing identified 163 differentially expressed lncRNAs in CRC. GO and KEGG analyses revealed that genes near differentially-methylated or -expressed lncRNAs were associated with CRC occurrence and development. Methylation was positively correlated with lncRNA expression levels in CRC and tumor-adjacent normal tissues. More unmethylated than M6A methylated lncRNA molecules were detected. A competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) and lncRNA-mRNA expression-regulation network revealed a regulatory relationship between lncRNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs), and mRNAs.
Conclusions: The findings may help improve our understanding of lncRNA function in colorectal cancer.