Integrated Analysis of lncRNA and mRNA Transcriptomes Reveals New Regulators of Ubiquitination and the Immune Response in Silica-Induced Pulmonary Fibrosis

Objectives. As an epigenetic player, long noncoding RNAs (LncRNAs) have been reported to participate in multiple biological processes; however, their biological functions in silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis (SIPF) occurrence and development remain incompletely understood. Methods. Five case/control pairs were used to perform integrated transcriptomes analysis of lncRNA and mRNA. Prediction of lncRNA and mRNA functions was aided by the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases. Additionally, we constructed a coexpression network of lncRNAs and mRNAs to identify targets of regulation. Results. In total, 1069 differentially expressed mRNAs and 366 lncRNAs were identified with the changes more than 2 times (p2 (p