Microarray analysis of long non-coding RNA and mRNA expression profiles in diabetic cardiomyopathy using human induced pluripotent stem cell–derived cardiomyocytes

Aim: This study aims to investigate the altered expression signature of long non-coding RNAs, mRNAs and deregulated pathways related to diabetic cardiomyopathy disease pathogenesis. Method: We utilize the previously established in vitro diabetic cardiomyopathy model of human induced pluripotent stem cell–derived human cardiomyocytes to perform long non-coding RNA and mRNA expression analysis on glucose (11 mM), endothelin-1 (10 nM) and cortisol (1 µM) stimulated human induced pluripotent stem cell–derived human cardiomyocytes to interrogate diabetic cardiomyopathy associated RNA expression profile. Result: Out of 20,730 mRNAs and 40,173 long non-coding RNAs being screened, 2046 long non-coding RNAs and 1582 mRNAs were differentially regulated (fold change > 2, p < 0.05) between diabetic cardiomyopathy and control group, of which more than half were intergenic and antisense long non-coding RNAs. Most of the coding transcripts were associated with processes like inflammation, structural reorganization, metabolism, smooth muscle contraction, focal adhesion and repair contributing towards the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy. The subgroup analysis further revealed 411 long non-coding RNAs being co-expressed with neighbouring genes. However, our coding–non-coding co-expression analysis showed an overall 48,155 co-expression network connections. In addition to that, the long non-coding RNAs with highest network connections were profoundly enriched for focal adhesion, cell-matrix adhesion and muscle contraction. Conclusion: These results provide comprehensive data about the pathways and regulatory mechanisms associated with diabetic cardiomyopathy and indicate that long non-coding RNAs may play a crucial role in diabetic cardiomyopathy.