Chronic inflammation in intracranial aneurysm formation

Non-coding RNAs role in intracranial aneurysm: General principles with focus on inflammation

Intracranial aneurysm (IA) is one of the most challenging vascular lesions in the brain for clinicians. It was reported that 1%-6% of the world's population is affected by IAs. Owing to serious complications arising from these lesions, much attention has been paid to better understand their pathophysiology. Non-coding RNAs including short non-coding RNAs and long non-coding RNAs, have critical roles in modulating physiologic and pathological processes. These RNAs are emerging as new fundamental regulators of gene expression, are related with the progression of IA. Non-coding RNAs act via multiple mechanisms and be involved in vascular development, growth and remodeling. Furthermore, these molecules are involved in the regulation of inflammation, a key process in the formation and rupture of IA. Studying non-coding RNAs can yield a hypothetical mechanism for better understanding IA. The present study aims to focus on the role of these non-coding RNAs in the pathogenesis of IA.

Identification of key genes, transcription factors and microRNAs involved in intracranial aneurysm

Intracranial aneurysm (IA) is a devastating disease, the pathogenesis of which remains to be elucidated. The present study aimed to determine the molecular mechanism of IA and to identify potential therapeutic targets using bioinformatics analysis. The GSE54083 dataset, which includes data from patients with ruptured IA and superficial temporal artery controls, was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the ruptured IA samples using the limma package in R. Subsequently, the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery software was used to perform function and pathway enrichment analyses and the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes database was used to construct the protein‑protein interaction (PPI) network. Then, microRNA (miRNA) target and transcription factor (TF) target pairs were identified using the miR2Disease, MiRwalk2, ITFP and TRANSFAC databases. Finally, an integrated network of TF‑target‑miRNAs was constructed using Cytoscape. A total of 402 upregulated DEGs and 375 downregulated DEGs were identified from the ruptured IA samples compared with the superficial temporal artery samples. The majority of the upregulated DEGs were significantly enriched in the immune system development category, including CD40 ligand (CD40LG) and CD40 and the downregulated DEGs, such as striatin (STRN), were enriched in neuron projection development. In addition, nitric oxide synthase 1 (NOS1), a target of miRNA‑125b, and myosin heavy chain 11 (MYH11), a target of minichromosome maintenance complex component 4 (MCM4), had higher degree scores in the integrated network. These findings suggest that CD40, CD40LG, NOS1, STRN, MCM4, MYH11 and miR‑125b may be potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of IA.