Abstract: Objective · To identify some related molecular markers for the diagnosis and treatment of lung adenocarcinoma by transcriptome analysis. Methods · The differentially expressed analyses were performed to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs), the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs), and the differentially expressed circRNAs (DECs). Functional and pathway enrichment analyses were conducted for DEGs, and the targets prediction for DEMs. Regulated network of the DEGs and DEMs was constructed, and some candidates were selected. The biomarkers obtained were verified by the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and the qRT-PCR, and the correlation between their expression levels and overall survival and tumor stage were analyzed. Results · Sixty-one overlaps were contained in the 3 sets of DEGs in 3 gene expression profiles, which were enriched in 32 gene ontology (GO) terms and 10 pathways. Twenty-four DEMs were identified, and 612 miRNA-target pairs were screened out that the target genes were DEGs. In the circRNA microarray, 92 DECs were obtained. ADRA1A, hsa-miR-141-5p and hsa-miR-191-3p were important nodes in the network. TCGA and qRT-PCR results were consistent with the microarray analysis results, in addition, hsa-miR-191-3p was significantly correlated with tumor stage. Conclusion · ADRA1A, hsa-miR-141-5p, hsa-miR-191-3p, SFTPC, ITLN2 and SLC6A4 might be potential biomarkers of lung adenocarcinoma, and hsa-miR-191-3p might be associated with tumor progression.

Key words: lung adenocarcinoma, transcriptome analysis, bioinformatics analysis, potential biomarker