Reconstruction and analysis of the aberrant lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network based on competitive endogenous RNA in CESC

A growing body of studies has demonstrated that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) are regarded as the primary section of the ceRNA network. This is thought to be the case owing to its regulation of protein-coding gene expression by functioning as miRNA sponges. However, functional roles and regulatory mechanisms of lncRNA-mediated ceRNA in cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CESC), as well as their use for potential prediction of CESC prognosis, remains unknown. The aberrant expression profiles of mRNA, lncRNA, and miRNA of 306 cervical squamous cancer tissues and three adjacent cervical tissues were obtained from the TCGA database. A lncRNA-mRNA-miRNA ceRNA network in CESC was constructed. Meanwhile, Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG pathway analysis were performed using Cytoscape plug-in BinGo and DAVID database. We identified a total of 493 lncRNA, 70 miRNA, and 1921 mRNA as differentially expressed profiles. An aberrant lncRNA-mRNA-miRNA ceRNA network was constructed in CESC, it was composed of 50 DElncRNA, 18 DEmiRNA, and 81 DEmRNA. According to the overall survival analysis, 3 out of 50 lncRNA, 10 out of 81 mRNA, and 1 out of 18 miRNA functioned as prognostic biomarkers for patients with CESC (P value < 0.05). We extracted the sub-network in the ceRNA network and found that two novel lncRNA were recognized as key genes. These included lncRNA MEG3 and lncRNA ADAMTS9-AS2. The present study provides a new insight into a better understanding of the lncRNA-related ceRNA network in CESC, and the novel recognized ceRNA network will help us to improve our understanding of lncRNA-mediated ceRNA regulatory mechanisms in the pathogenesis of CESC.