Transcriptome analysis identifies key regulators and networks in Acute myeloid leukemia

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous and highly recurrent hematological malignancy. Studies have shown an association between microRNAs and drive genes in AMLs. However, the regulatory roles of miRNAs in AML and how they act on downstream targets and the signaling pathway has been little studied.

Methods: As to understand the mechanism of mRNA-miRNA interaction in the blood malignancy from a large scale of transcriptomic sequencing studies, we applied a comprehensive miRNA-mRNA association, co-expression gene network and ingenuity pathway analysis using TCGA AML datasets.

Results: Our results showed that his-mir-335 was a critical regulatory of homeobox A gene family. PBX3, KAT6A, MEIS1, and COMMD3-BMI1 were predicted as top transcription regulators in the regulatory network of the HOXA family. The most significantly enriched functions were cell growth, proliferation, and survival in the mRNA-miRNA network.

Conclusion: Our work revealed that regulation of the HOXA gene family and its regulation played an important role in the development of AML.

KEYWORDS:

• Acute myeloid leukemia
• miRNA-mRNA association analysis
• transcriptomic sequencing analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science Technology Bureau of Shaoxing (2018C30022) and the Shaoxing Shangyu Municipal Funding (Funding-ID-2015-11-07).