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Global correlation analysis for miRNA and protein expression profiles in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells

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Abstract

Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression at protein level by protein translation inhibition or mRNA degradation. However, the global correlation patterns between miRNA and protein have not been studied yet. To establish the global correlation patterns in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), this study conducted multiple types of miRNA–protein correlation analyses in 28 Chinese subjects. Pearson correlation analysis showed a negative but relatively small global correlation in each subject. Among the 371 constructed miRNA–protein pairs (60 unique miRNAs, and 150 unique proteins), 10.5% of pairs have significant correlations (P < 0.05). Some highlighted miRNAs (e.g., hsa-miR-590-3p, hsa-miR-520d-3p) exerted significant regulation on multiple genes. Simultaneously, some genes (e.g., HSP90B1) were targeted by multiple miRNAs. The target genes associated with miRNAs tend to enrich in some important GO terms: biological processes (e.g., gene expression, protein binding and RNA binding), and molecular functions (protein binding: GO:0005515; RNA binding: GO:0003723). The results provided a global view of the miRNA–protein expression correlation profile in human PBMCs, which would facilitate in-depth investigation of biological functions of key miRNAs/proteins and better understanding of the pathogenesis underlying PBMC related diseases.

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Funding

The study was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (81872681, 81373010, 81473046, 81502868, 81541068, 31401079, and 81401343), the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (16KJA330001) and a Project of the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions. Funding was provided by Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province (Grant No. 560 thousand yuan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Genomics, School of Public Health, Medical College of Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Huang, Fei-Yan Deng & Shu-Feng Lei

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Preventive and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Diseases, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Huang, Fei-Yan Deng & Shu-Feng Lei

Authors
  1. Liang Huang
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  2. Fei-Yan Deng
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  3. Shu-Feng Lei
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Correspondence to Shu-Feng Lei.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by Institutional Research Ethic Board at the Soochow University.

Informed consent

All subjects signed informed consent forms before participating in the project. The collection and use of human materials for the present study were approved by Institutional Research Ethic Board at the Soochow University. Informed consent forms were collected from all the participants before entering the study.

Research involving human and animal participants

The study has involved human participants. Twenty-eight unrelated Chinese Han adult females from the region of Suzhou city of China were recruited from an ongoing project with original aim of investigating genetic and genomic factors of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using multi-omics strategies. All the study subjects were excluded from serious diseases involving vital organs (brain, liver, kidney, heart or lung).

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Huang, L., Deng, FY. & Lei, SF. Global correlation analysis for miRNA and protein expression profiles in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Mol Biol Rep 47, 5295–5304 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-020-05608-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-020-05608-y

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