LncRNA TARID induces cell proliferation through cell cycle pathway associated with coronary artery disease

Long non-coding RNA TARID (lncRNA TARID) can activate the tumor suppressor TCF21 in tumorigenesis by inducing promoter demethylation. However, the impact on lncRNA TARID and its variants of coronary artery disease (CAD) are poorly understood.

We performed a case-control study enrolling 949 cases and 892 controls to assess genotype. Five variants were genotyped by TaqMan assay. 20 cases and 20 controls were used to evaluate the expression of lncRNA TARID. The cell proliferation rate was evaluated by CCK-8. The RT-qPCR and cell cycle analysis were applied to examine cell proliferation-related mRNA and cell distribution.

This study indicated that rs2327433 GG genotype was associated with CAD risk adjusting for traditional risk factors (OR = 2.74, 95%CI: 1.10-6.83, P = 0.03). Our results analyses revealed that the genotype of rs2327433 was related to the proportion of CAD patients with left anterior descending artery disease and left circumflex artery disease (P = 0.025 and P = 0.025, respectively). The results showed that the minor allele frequency of rs2327433 was significantly correlated with the severity of the disease (P = 0.029). The eQTL analysis showed that rs2327433 may affect the transcription factors TCF21 regulated by lncRNA TARID. We found that TARID silencing regulated cell proliferation and altered cell cycle progression by induced upregulation of CDK1 and PCNA.

SNP rs2327433 in lncRNA TARID was associated with CAD risk and the severity of CAD in the Chinese Han population. Furthermore, SNP rs2327433 may affect the expression of atherosclerosis-related transcription factor TCF21 regulated by lncRNA TARID. Finally, our study provided a new lncRNA-dictated regulatory mechanism participating in cell proliferation.