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Transcriptome of visceral adipose tissue identifies an inflammation-related ceRNA network that regulates obesity

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Abstract

Obesity is becoming an epidemic of widespread concern, but the underlying causes remain elusive. In this study, whole transcriptome RNA sequencing revealed differential profiles of noncoding (nc) RNAs and mRNAs in visceral adipose tissue from obese (BMI > 32.5 kg/m2) and lean (BMI < 20 kg/m2) individuals, with 1920 differentially expressed genes, 1466 long noncoding (lnc) RNAs, 122 micro (mi) RNAs, and 52 circular (circ) RNAs identified. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis, Gene Ontology analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis revealed that these ncRNAs were involved in inflammation-related pathways that included cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction, the tumor necrosis factor and nuclear factor kappa B signaling pathways. The results indicated a critical role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of obesity. The network interaction of lncRNA, circRNA, and miRNA revealed a competing endogenous (ce) RNA network that was associated with inflammation. The ceRNA network included circORC5/miR-197-5p/TNFRSF10D and circNTRK2/miR-760/LAT, which were dysregulated in obese patients. In conclusion, this whole transcriptome study provided a pool of data that will be useful for identifying biomarkers of obesity and identified an obesity-associated ceRNA network that is regulated by circORC5 and circNTRK2.

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Data availability

The primary RNA-Seq datasets are available in https://submit.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, with a grant number PRJNA763819.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The General Surgery Department of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 8 Gongtinan lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100020, People’s Republic of China

    Ganbin Li, Haoyu Zhang, Ke Cao, Zhiwei Zhai, Zhenjun Wang, Lei Yang & Jiagang Han

  2. Medical Research Center of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 8 Gongtinan lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100020, People’s Republic of China

    Lei Yang

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  1. Ganbin Li
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Contributions

Conceptualization, G-BL and ZWZ; Data curation, G-BL, HYZ, KC, ZWZ and ZJW; Formal analysis, G-BL and ZWZ; Funding acquisition, G-BL, LY and J-GH; Investigation, HYZ and LY; Methodology, G-BL, KC, ZWZ, ZJW, LY and J-GH; Project administration, ZJW; Resources, HYZ, KC and LY; Software, G-BL, KC and J-GH; Supervision, HYZ and ZWZ; Validation, G-BL, HYZ and ZJW; Writing—original draft, G-BL and LY; Writing—review & editing, ZJW and J-GH.

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Correspondence to Lei Yang or Jiagang Han.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University (2021-scientific-367).

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Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study, written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper.

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11010_2022_4362_MOESM1_ESM.tif

FIGURE S1 Samples selected for RNA-seq were confirmed as VAT by histopathologic examination. Supplementary file1 (TIF 1528 KB)

11010_2022_4362_MOESM2_ESM.tif

FIGURE S2 GO and KEGG enrichment analysis of key genes (hub genes, target gene of DE lncRNAs and host genes of circRNAs). A The top 10 significantly enriched GO items of BP, MF and CC of key genes, respectively. B The top 10 significantly enriched KEGG pathways of key genes. Supplementary file2 (TIF 1078 KB)

Supplementary file3 (DOCX 16 KB)

Supplementary file4 (DOCX 14 KB)

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Li, G., Zhang, H., Cao, K. et al. Transcriptome of visceral adipose tissue identifies an inflammation-related ceRNA network that regulates obesity. Mol Cell Biochem 477, 1095–1106 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-022-04362-y

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