Identification and analysis of key lncRNAs in malignant-transformed BEAS-2B cells induced with coal tar pitch by microarray analysis.

This study aims to explore the key and differentially expressed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and elucidates their possible mechanisms in malignant-transformed Human bronchial epithelial (BEAS-2B) cells induced by coal tar pitch extracts (CTPE). BEAS-2B cells were stimulated with 2.4 μg/ml CTPE, then passaged for three times which were named CTPE1 and then passaged until passage 30 (CTPE30). The results showed that cells of CTPE30 appeared abnormal morphology. Furthermore, migration, clonality and proliferation of cells in CTPE group were significantly increased compared with those in control groups. However, the apoptosis of cells in CTPE group was inhibited. A total of 569 differentially expressed mRNAs and 707 differentially expressed lncRNAs were screened out, among which four lncRNAs were validated and were consistent with the microarray results. 32 target genes were screened out by Co-expression network. The study suggests that differentially expressed lncRNAs may play a potential role in lung carcinogenesis.