Author(s)

Ying Xu^1*, Na Guo^1*, Jinghan Guo², Dongze Wang³, Qian Xu⁴, Xiangling Li⁴, Zhengxin Zhang⁴, Hongbin Yang¹, Ruxing Wang⁵, Xiurong Zhao⁶, Lei Liu^1#

¹Department of Immunology, Chengde Medical University, Chengde, China.
²Beijing North Institute of Biotechnology, Beijing, China.
³Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, China.
⁴Department of Pathology, Chengde Medical University, Chengde, China.
⁵Hebei Province Key Laboratory of Research and Development for Chinese Medicine, Chengde Medical University, Chengde, China.
⁶Department of Preventive Medicine, Chengde Medical University, Chengde, China.

Background: Resistance to cisplatin (DDP) leads to poor prognosis in patients with Lung Adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and limits its clinical application. It has been confirmed that autophagy promotes chemoresistance and, therefore, novel strategies to reverse chemoresistance by regulating autophagy are desperately needed. Methods: The differentially expressed lncRNAs (DElncRNAs), miRNAs (DEmiRNAs), and mRNAs (DEmRNAs) between A549 and A549/DDP cell lines were identified using the limma package in R, after gene expression profiles were obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. By combining Autophagy-Related Genes (ARGs) from Human Autophagy Database (HADb), the interactions lncRNA-miRNAs and the interactions miRNAs-mRNAs respectively predicted by miRcode and miRDB/Targetscan database, the autophagy-related ceRNA network was constructed. Then, extraction of ceRNA subnetwork and Cox regression analyses were performed. A prognosis-related ceRNA subnetwork was constructed, and the upstream Transcription Factors (TFs) regulating lncRNAs were predicted by the JASPAR database. Finally, the expression patterns of candidate genes were further verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) experiments. Results: A total of 3179 DEmRNAs, 180 DEmiRNAs, and 160 DElncRNAs were identified, and 35 DEmRNAs were contained in the HADb. Based on the ceRNA hypothesis, we established a ceRNA network, including 10 autophagy-related DEmRNAs, 9 DEmiRNAs, and 14 DElncRNAs. Then, LINC00520, miR-181d, and BCL2 were identified to construct a risk score model, which was confirmed to be a well-predicting prognostic factor. Furthermore, 5 TF ZNF family members were predicted to regulate LINC00520, whereas the RT-PCR results showed that the 5 ZNFs were consistent with the bioinformatics analysis. Finally, a ZNF regulatory LINC00520/miR-181d/BCL2 ceRNA subnetwork was constructed. Conclusions: An ZNFs/LINC00520/miR-181d/BCL2 axis as a novel network in DDP-resistant LUAD has been constructed successfully, which may provide potential therapeutic targets for LUAD.

Computational Biology, Cisplatin, Drug Resistance, Autophagy, Lung Neoplasms

Xu, Y. , Guo, N. , Guo, J. , Wang, D. , Xu, Q. , Li, X. , Zhang, Z. , Yang, H. , Wang, R. , Zhao, X. and Liu, L. (2023) Bioinformatics Identification of ZNFs/LINC00520/miR-181d/BCL2 Axis as a Novel Network in Cisplatin-Resistant Lung Adenocarcinoma Cells. American Journal of Molecular Biology, 13, 67-93. doi: 10.4236/ajmb.2023.131006.