Dysregulated Circulating Apoptosis- and Autophagy-Related lncRNAs as Diagnostic Markers in Coronary Artery Disease

OBJECTIVE: Increasing evidence emphasizes the implications of dysregulated apoptosis and autophagy cellular processes in coronary artery disease (CAD). Herein, we aimed to explore apoptosis- and autophagy-related long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in peripheral blood of CAD patients. METHODS: The mRNA and lncRNA expression profiles were retrieved from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. With ∣fold change | >1.5 and adjusted p value < 0.05, differentially expressed apoptosis- and autophagy-related mRNAs were screened between CAD and healthy blood samples. Also, differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified for CAD. Using the psych package, apoptosis- and autophagy-related lncRNAs were defined with Spearson's correlation analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted for the assessment of the diagnosed efficacy of these apoptosis- and autophagy-related lncRNAs. RESULTS: Our results showed that 24 apoptosis- and autophagy-related mRNAs were abnormally expressed in CAD than normal controls. 12 circulating upregulated and 1 downregulated apoptosis- and autophagy-related lncRNAs were identified for CAD. The ROCs confirmed that AC004485.3 (AUC = 0.899), AC004920.3 (AUC = 0.93), AJ006998.2 (AUC = 0.776), H19 (AUC = 0.943), RP5-902P8.10 (AUC = 0.956), RP5-1114G22.2 (AUC = 0.883), RP11-247A12.1 (AUC = 0.885), RP11-288L9.4 (AUC = 0.928), RP11-344B5.2 (AUC = 0.858), RP11-452C8.1 (AUC = 0.929), RP11-565A3.1 (AUC = 0.893), and XXbac-B33L19.4 (AUC = 0.932) exhibited good performance in differentiating CAD from healthy controls. CONCLUSION: Collectively, our findings proposed that circulating apoptosis- and autophagy-related lncRNAs could become underlying diagnostic markers for CAD in clinical practice.