Transcriptome profiling of lncRNA and co-expression network in the vaginal epithelial tissue of women with lubrication disorders

BACKGROUND: Vaginal lubrication is a crucial physiological response that occurs at the beginning of sexual arousal. However, research on lubrication disorders (LD) is still in its infancy, and the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in LD remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the function of lncRNAs in the pathogenesis of vaginal LD. METHODS: The expression profiles of LD and normal control (NC) lncRNAs were examined using next-generation sequencing (NGS), and eight selected differentially expressed lncRNAs were verified by quantitative real-time PCR. We conducted GO annotation and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses to determine the principal functions of significantly deregulated genes. LncRNA-mRNA co-expression and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks were constructed and the lncRNA transcription factors (TFs) were predicted. RESULTS: From the results, we identified 181,631 lncRNAs and 145,224 mRNAs in vaginal epithelial tissue. Subsequently, our preliminary judgment revealed a total of 499 up-regulated and 337 down-regulated lncRNAs in LD. The top three enriched GO items of the dysregulated lncRNAs included the following significant terms: “contractile fiber part,” “actin filament-based process,” and “contractile fiber”. The most enriched pathways were “cell-extracellular matrix interactions,” “muscle contraction,” “cell-cell communication,” and “cGMP-PKG signaling pathway”. Our results also showed that the lncRNA-mRNA co-expression network was a powerful platform for predicting lncRNA functions. We determined the three hub genes, ADCY5, CXCL12, and NMU, using PPI network construction and analysis. A total of 231 TFs were predicted with RHOXF1, SNAI2, ZNF354C and TBX15 were suspected to be involved in the mechanism of LD. CONCLUSION: In this study, we constructed the lncRNA-mRNA co-expression network, predicted the lncRNA TFs, and comprehensively analyzed lncRNA expression profiles in LD, providing a basis for future studies on LD clinical biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Further research is also needed to fully determine lncRNA’s role in LD development.