Global correlation analysis for microRNA and gene expression profiles in human obesity

Obesity is an increasing health problem associated with major adverse consequences for human health. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small endogenous non-coding RNAs, regulate the expression of genes that play roles in human body via posttranscriptional inhibition. To identify the miRNAs and their target genes involved in obesity, we downloaded the miRNA and gene expression profiles from gene expression omnibus (GEO) database and analyzed the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in adipose tissues from obese subjects compared to those from non-obese subjects. Then, we constructed the miRNA-target interaction network and conducted functional enrichment analysis of DEGs, and the targets negatively correlated with DEMs. We identified a total of 16 miRNAs and 192 genes that showed a significantly different expression and 3002 miRNA-target interaction pairs, including 182 regulatory pairs in obesity. Target genes of DEMs were found mainly enriched in several functions, such as collagen fibril organization, extracellular matrix part, and extracellular matrix structural constituent. Moreover, hsa-miR-425 and hsa-miR-126 had a significant number of target genes and hsa-miR-16/COL12A1 and hsa-miR-634/SLC4A4 interaction pairs are significantly co-expressed, suggesting that they might play important roles in the pathogenesis of obesity. Our study provides a bioinformatic basis for further research of molecular mechanism in obesity.