GSE98127
Mapping the chemotherapy-induced RNA interactome in Glioblastoma [smallRNA-Seq]
Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are increasingly recognized as important players in transcription and epigenetic-driven cell diversification. So far, lncRNA function in more dynamic transcriptional reprogramming, i.e drug response, has been largely unexplored. Here, we investigated the regulatory circuits induced by chemotherapy in glioblastoma, the most aggressive and clinically refractory brain cancer. We performed a detailed characterization of the cellular and transcriptional response of glioblastoma stem-like cells to the alkylating agent temozolomide (TMZ). We found that in addition to mRNAs, TMZ affects the expression of a large number of non-coding RNAs (miRNAs, snoRNAs, lncRNAs). Our global transcriptome analysis provides a comprehensive characterization of regulatory circuits involving transcription factors, mRNAs, miRNAs and lncRNAs. To analyse the putative functions of these largely unknown RNA molecules, we developed a pipeline to integrate small and large RNA-seq data from multiple public databases and our own experiments. This led to the identification of the RNA interactome of glioblastoma and allowed us to define regulatory loops mediated by lncRNAs. We identified 22 key lncRNAs involved in transcriptional regulatory motifs, and three lncRNAs associated with patient prognosis, independent of other known response predictors. The investigation of TMZ-induced molecular networks in glioblastoma highlights novel coding and non-coding RNA-based predictors of glioblastoma chemoresistance, as well as potential targets to counteract such resistance. Overall design: RNA and small RNA profiling of 3 GBM stem-like cells and neural stem cells under TMZ treatment or vehicle in triplicate. This Series represents the small RNA profiling dataset.