The profiles and networks of miRNA, lncRNA, mRNA, and circRNA in benzo(a)pyrene-transformed bronchial epithelial cells

: Our aim was to demonstrate the significance of miRNA, lncRNA, and circRNA in the transformation of human bronchial epithelial cells induced by benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), and to investigate their regulatory networks. Hierarchical clustering, gene ontology (GO) analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis and network regulation analysis were used to analyze the high-throughput sequencing results of human bronchial epithelial cell line BEAS-2B and BaP-transformed BEAS-2B cells (BEAS-2B-T). 76,191,786 and 3,431differentially-expressed miRNA, lncRNA, mRNA and circRNA were detected, respectively; 43 miRNA, 48 lncRNA, 438 mRNA and 2,079 circRNA were up-regulated; 33 miRNA, 143 lncRNA, 348 mRNA and 1,352 circRNA were down-regulated. Through GO analysis, 257 biological process (BP) terms, 12 cell composition (CC) terms and 49 molecular function (MF) terms were found in differentially-expressed lncRNA; 143 BP terms, 32 CC terms, and 48 MF terms were found in differentially-expressed circRNA. Pathways of KEGG analysis of lncRNA and circRNA could be classified into the categories "human diseases" and "organism systems". From miRNA-circRNA, circRNA-mRNA, and lncRNA-circRNA networks analysis, we found that mir-137, circ-RPS5, circ-ZNF292, circ-ERBB2IP, circ-SEMA3C, circ-IGF1R, circ-RTN4, APOC1, and CDKN2A may be of great significance for cell transformation. From the analysis of miRNA, lncRNA, mRNA, and circRNA networks, we found that PDGFRB, lncRNA RGMB-AS1, circ-ZNF292 are associated with miR-138-5p. Our study shows that miRNA, lncRNA, and circRNA have a significant regulatory role in the transformation of human bronchial epithelial cell induced by BaP.