Asthma is a chronic disorder of both adults and children affecting more than 300 million people heath worldwide. Diagnose and treatment for asthma, particularly in childhood asthma have always remained a great challenge because of its complex pathogenesis and multiple triggers, such as allergen, viral infection, tobacco smoke, dust, etc. It is thereby great significant to deeply investigate the transcriptome changes in asthmatic children before and after desensitization treatment, in order that we could identify potential and key mRNAs and lncRNAs which might be considered as useful RNA molecules for observing and supervising desensitization therapy for asthma, which might guide the diagnose and therapy in childhood asthma. In the present study, we performed a systematic transcriptome analysis based on the deep RNA sequencing of ten asthmatic children before and after desensitization treatment, including identification of lncRNAs using a stringent filtering pipeline, differential expression analysis and network analysis, etc. First, a large number of lncRNAs were identified and characterized. Then differential expression analysis revealed 39 mRNAs and 15 lncRNAs significantly differentially expressed which involved in two biological processes and pathways. A co-expressed network analysis figured out a desensitization-treatment-related module which contains 27 mRNAs and 21 lncRNAs using WGCNA R package. Module analysis disclosed 17 genes associated to asthma at distinct level. Subsequent network analysis based on PCC figured out several key lncRNAs probably interacted to those key asthma-related genes, i.e., LINC02145, GUSBP2. Our functional investigation indicated that their functions might involve in immune, inflammatory response and apoptosis process. Our study successfully discovered many key noncoding RNA molecules related to pathogenesis of asthma and relevant treatment, which may provide some clues for asthmatic diagnose and therapy in future.

中文翻译：

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外周全血的转录组分析确定了与儿童哮喘有关的关键lncRNA。

哮喘是一种成年人和儿童的慢性疾病，影响了全球3亿多人的健康。哮喘的诊断和治疗，尤其是儿童哮喘，由于其复杂的发病机制和多种诱因，例如变应原，病毒感染，烟草烟雾，粉尘等，一直是一个巨大的挑战。因此，深入研究转录组的变化具有重大意义。为了对哮喘儿童进行脱敏治疗前后的识别，我们可能会发现潜在和关键的mRNA和lncRNA，它们可能被视为观察和指导哮喘脱敏治疗的有用RNA分子，从而可能指导儿童哮喘的诊断和治疗。在目前的研究中，我们基于十个哮喘儿童脱敏治疗前后的深RNA测序进行了系统的转录组分析，包括使用严格的过滤管线鉴定lncRNA，差异表达分析和网络分析等。首先，鉴定了大量lncRNA和特点。然后差异表达分析显示39个mRNA和15个lncRNAs显着差异表达，这涉及两个生物学过程和途径。共同表达的网络分析使用WGCNA R软件包找出了与脱敏处理相关的模块，该模块包含27个mRNA和21个lncRNA。模块分析揭示了与哮喘相关的17个基因。随后基于PCC的网络分析发现了几个关键的lncRNA，它们可能与那些与哮喘相关的关键基因，即LINC02145，GUSBP2相互作用。我们的功能研究表明，它们的功能可能与免疫，炎症反应和凋亡过程有关。我们的研究成功发现了许多关键的非编码RNA分子，它们与哮喘的发病机理及相关的治疗方法有关，这可能为将来的哮喘诊断和治疗提供一些线索。