Microarray profiling of long noncoding RNAs and mRNA expression in the kidney of rats damaged by cadmium |Biomedgrid

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic heavy metal that can induce nephrotoxicity with the unclear molecular mechanism. Microarray technology is a tool in the global analysis of gene expression, allowing for the simultaneous investigation of hundreds or thousands of genes in a sample. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) represent a novel class of noncoding RNAs that are involved in a variety of biological processes and human diseases. For the gene expression analysis, kidney tissues from both normal(fed with physiological saline) and cadmium treated rats(fed with 6.6mg/kg cadmium for 4 weeks) were collected. Total RNA was extracted and subjected to the CapitalBio Technology Rat LncRNA Array v1, KEGG, Gene Ontology (GO) analysis were applied to screen and analyze differentially regulated genes. This study identified 322 lncRNAs and 495 mRNAs that were differentially expressed after cadmium-induced kidney damage, indicating a potential role for lncRNAs and mRNAs. Enrichment analysis of differentially expressed mRNAs and the results could be enriched to inflammatory mediator regulation of TRP channels, which may be related to kidney damage caused by cadmium. Subsequently, the mRNA expression in this channel was verified by RT-qPCR. A lncRNA-mRNA-transcription factor co-expression network was constructed to relate lncRNAs to regulatory factors and pathways that may be important in the kidney by cadmium damage. This study analyzed differentially expressed genes in the kidney tissues of normal and cadmium damage by microarray analysis and bioinformatics, and to determine the potential molecular mechanisms of nephrotoxicity damaged by cadmium.