Competing Endogenous RNA Network Analysis of the Molecular Mechanisms of Ischemic Stroke

Abstract

Abstract Object Through the construction of a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network, this study aimed to search for and investigate the possible molecular mechanisms of potential biomarkers associated with ischemic stroke (IS). Method Seven expression profiles of miRNA, mRNA, and lncRNA were downloaded from the NCBI GEO database. Following the exploration of the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs), lncRNAs (DElncRNAs), and mRNAs (DEmRNAs), the lncRNA–miRNA and miRNA–mRNA pairs were predicted with target prediction tools, and a ceRNA network was constructed. Subsequently, functional enrichment analyses were performed, a protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed, and the immune cell infiltration landscapes were evaluated using the CIBERSORT algorithm. Finally, we identified the key lncRNAs, miRNAs, and mRNAs of IS using bioinformatics methods and assessed their diagnostic efficacy in the validation datasets. The expression of these key genes was also validated using the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in PC12 cells. Results We constructed the ceRNA network for IS. The DEmRNAs were mainly enriched in inflammatory signaling pathways through enrichment analysis. In the cerebral infarction group, the B cells naïve, T cells naïve, and monocytes had statistically different numbers compared with the control group. We used the criterion AUC > 0.7 to screen key miRNAs, mRNAs, and lncRNA. Finally, six key RNAs were identified. The verification results of the relative RNA expression by qRT-PCR were consistent with the results of the bioinformatics analysis. Conclusion Our results suggest that the ceRNA network exerted an important role in the inflammatory pathogenesis of IS and provided a new strategy to conduct IS research.