Co-expression Network Analysis Revealing the Potential Regulatory Roles of lncRNAs in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common types of dementia among the elderly. Previous studies had revealed that the dysregulation of lncRNAs played important roles in human diseases, including AD. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive analysis of differently expressed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in different distinct regions related to AD. In present study, we identified a total of 678, 593, 941, 1445, 1179, 466 differently expressed lncRNAs that were found in entorhinal cortex (EC), middle temporal gyrus(MTG), hippocampus (HIP), superior frontal gyrus (SFG), posterior cingulate (PC), cortex and primary visual cortex (VCX) AD samples, respectively. Furthermore, we constructed lncRNA-mRNA co-expression networks in AD to explore the potential roles of these lncRNAs. Differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs were involved in regulating metabolic process, respiratory electron transport chain and ATP metabolic process showed by GO analysis. Interestingly, KEGG analysis revealed these lncRNAs were associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. Four lncRNAs (LOC100507557, LOC101929787, NEAT1, and JAZF1-AS1) were identified as key lncRNAs in AD progression and dysregulated in different distinct regions related to AD. Our study has uncovered several key lncRNAs in AD, which would give novel underlying therapeutic and prognostic targets for AD.