Genome-wide gene expression analysis suggests an important regulatory role of lncRNAs in primary Sjögren’s syndrome

Introduction: Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a common autoimmune disease, with the minor salivary gland (MSG) being the main affected tissue; however, its pathogenesis remains unclear. Although changes in long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) expression have been reported in pSS, their biological functions are uncertain, despite the regulatory roles suggested. Therefore, it would be meaningful to systematically investigate the gene expression of lncRNAs in pSS for their regulatory roles and possible contribution to the disease development. Methods: overexpression experiments in a salivary gland cell line were performed to evaluate the regulatory roles of three selected lncRNAs as ceRNAs. Results: experiment and their expression was correlated with clinical features of pSS. Discussion: Systematic analysis of coding and lncRNA expression in MSG samples suggests a genome-wide regulatory role for lncRNAs in pSS. We constructed, for the first time, a genome-wide ceRNA network. This ceRNA network can be used to infer lncRNA functions based on their interacting coding genes. The gene regulatory roles of three lncRNAs were validated. Our study suggests that lncRNAs contribute significantly to coding gene expression changes in pSS via ceRNA mechanisms, and the identified regulatory lncRNA candidates could be useful for diagnosis, sub-classification, and treatment.