Identification and evaluation of hub mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs in neutrophils during sepsis.

To reveal the systematic response of neutrophils to sepsis and to study the hub lncRNAs in sepsis. Neutrophils taken from the femur and tibia of male C57 BL/6 mice were used in this study. And neutrophils were treated for 0 h, 0.5 h, 1 h, and 4 h with or without 1 µg/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for further chip detection. In addition, cecal ligation and perforation were used to simulate sepsis. Here, we used different bioinformatics analyses, including differential expression analysis, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), and gene regulatory network analysis, to analyze the systemic response of neutrophils to sepsis. We identified nine modules and found hub lncRNAs in each module. The blue and pink modules were closely related to the inflammatory state of sepsis. Some hub lncRNAs (NONMMUT005259, KnowTID_00004196, and NR_003507) may have functions related to the inflammatory state in sepsis. Based on a new biological approach, our research results revealed the systemic-level response of neutrophils to sepsis and identified several hub lncRNAs with potential regulatory effects on this condition.