Bioinformatics analysis of long non-coding RNA HAGLROS in gastric cancer

Objective To analyze the significance of long non-coding RNA HAGLROS in gastric cancer by using bioinformatics methods, predict the target genes, related biological processes and pathways of HAGLROS, and establish HAGLROS-miRNA-mRNA network.

Methods UCSC Xena, UALCAN and GEPIA databases were used to analyze the differential expressions of genes in gastric cancer; the co-expression genes of HAGLROS were analyzed by the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databasein combination with R language; STRING database and Cytoscape software were used to establish protein-protein interaction network (PPI) and screen key genes; microRNA (miRNA) interacting with HAGLROS were predicted by miRDB, LncBase and RNAhybrid databases; miRNA downstream target gene prediction was performed by using miRDB, miRTarBase, TargetScan database and R language; gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis were analyzed by R language, WebGestalt and Metascape online databases; results were drew by R software.

Results HAGLROS was highly expressed in gastric cancer, and was related to the overall survival of patients with gastric cancer. There were 301 co-expressed genes of HAGLROS, which may be related to biological processes such as embryonic and organ growth and nerve growth, and signal pathways such as Wnt, Notch and stem cell pluripotency regulation, and its key genes were closely related to embryonic growth and nerve growth. NES, FGF8 and FGF3 might be the three genes most closely related to HAGLROS. HAGLROS-miR-1976-ORAI2 axis might be involved in regulating the occurrence and development of gastric cancer.

Conclusion HAGLROS is highly expressed in gastric cancer and may be related to the biological processes of embryonic growth and nerve growth and the signal pathways such as Wnt, Notch and stem cell pluripotency regulation, which may promote the occurrence and development of gastric cancer and affect the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer by regulating the key genes such as NES, FGF8, FGF3 and HAGLROS-miR-1976-ORAI2 axis.