Scientific Reports (Apr 2017)

Exploring functions of long noncoding RNAs across multiple cancers through co-expression network

  • Suqing Li,
  • Bin Li,
  • Yuanting Zheng,
  • Menglong Li,
  • Leming Shi,
  • Xuemei Pu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00856-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract In contrast to protein-coding genes, long-noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are much less well understood, despite increasing evidence indicating a wide range of their biological functions, and possible roles in various cancers. Based on public RNA-seq datasets of four solid cancer types, we here utilize Weighted Correlation Network Analysis (WGCNA) to propose a strategy for exploring the functions of lncRNAs altered in more than two cancer types, which we call onco-lncRNAs. Results indicate that cancer-expressed lncRNAs show high tissue specificity and are weakly expressed, more so than protein-coding genes. Most of the 236 onco-lncRNAs we identified have not been reported to have associations with cancers before. Our analysis exploits co-expression network to reveal that onco-lncRNAs likely play key roles in the multistep development of human cancers, covering a wide range of functions in genome stability maintenance, signaling, cell adhesion and motility, morphogenesis, cell cycle, immune and inflammatory response. These observations contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of cancer-associated lncRNAs, while demonstrating a novel and efficient strategy for subsequent functional studies of lncRNAs.