Long non-coding RNA MALAT1 protects preterm infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia by inhibiting cell apoptosis

BACKGROUND: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a neonatal chronic lung disease characterized by impaired pulmonary alveolar development in preterm infants. Until now, little is known about the molecular and cellular basis of BPD. There is increasing evidence that lncRNAs regulate cell proliferation and apoptosis during lung organogenesis. The potential role of lncRNAs in the pathogenesis of BPD is unclear. This study aims to clarify the role of MALAT1 during the process of BPD in preterm infants and illustrate the protective effect of MALAT1 involved in preterm infants. METHODS: We assessed the expression of MALAT1 in BPD mice lung tissues by reanalyzing dataset GSE25286 (Mouse GEO Genome 4302 Array) from gene expression database gene expression omnibus (GEO), and verified MALAT1 expression in BPD patients by realtime q-PCR. Then the role of MALAT1 in regulating cell biology was examined by profiling dataset GSE43830. The expression of CDC6, a known antiapoptopic gene was verified in BPD patients and the alveolar epithelial cell line A549 cells in which MALAT1 was knocked down. Cell apoptosis was determined by FACS using PI/Annexin-V staining. RESULTS: The expression of MALAT1 was significantly evaluated in lung tissues of BPD mice at day 14 and day 29 compared to WT (P < 0.05). In consistent with mRNA array profiling analysis, MALAT1 expression level in blood samples from preterm infants with BPD was significantly increased. Bioinformative data analysis of MALAT1 knockdown in WI-38 cells showed various differentially expressed genes were found enriched in apoptosis related pathway. Down-regulation of antiapoptopic gene, CDC6 expression was further verified by q-PCR result. PI/Annexin-V apoptisis assay results showed that MALAT1 knocked down in the alveolar epithelial cell line (A549) promotes cell apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, we found that up-regulation of lncRNA MALAT1 could protect preterm infants with BPD by inhibiting cell apoptosis. These data provide novel insights into MALAT1 regulation which may be relevant to cell fate and shed light on BPD prevention and treatment. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12890-017-0524-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.