Study on length polymorphism of 3'UTR in systemic lupus erytematosus patients

Objective Study the length polymorphism of 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and analyse its role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Methods Detect the alternative polyadenylation sites by mRNA 3' end specific sequencing, and then determine the changes in 3'UTR length, meanwhile, detect the differentially expressed genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of SLE patients.Explore the relationship between length polymorphism of 3'UTR and the clinical symptoms of SLE by bioinformatics analysis. Results Compared with healthy controls, 904 genes in SLE group tended to use significant length-changed 3'UTR.These genes significantly enriched in 26 KEGG pathways associated with the pathogenesis of SLE, and 1 597 genes had significant different expression levels, which enriched in 22 KEGG pathways related to SLE. Conclusions SLE is a complex polygenic disease.The genes with 3'UTR length polymorphism had an important influence on the development of SLE, 3'UTR may participate in the epigenetic regulation of the pathogenesis of SLE. Key words: Systemic lupus erythematosus; 3'UTR length polymorphism; Bioinformatics functional analysis