lncRNA-based study of epigenetic regulations in diabetic peripheral neuropathy

Diabetes remains one of the most prevalent non-communicable diseases in the world, affecting over 400 million of people worldwide, causing serious complications leading to amputations and even death. Over the years, researchers have found that, in addition to genomic mutations, epigenetic mechanisms also play a role in the development of diabetes-specifically type-2 diabetes. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been linked to mediate epigenetic mechanisms, including those in late-stage diabetes. This study attempts to assess the unexplored topic of how lncRNAs could be used to assess the epigenetic mechanisms present in diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN); a serious complication of the disease often leading to amputation. Differential lncRNA expression analysis was done with a dataset containing DPN and healthy patients. Standard and corrected t test, and also LIMMA was applied. Results of this study indicates the usefulness of lncRNAs as an exploratory tool to elucidate the complexity of the epigenetic mechanisms of human DPN.