Construction and analysis of lncRNA-related ceRNA network in mouse model of methotrexate-induced neural tube defect under folate deficiency

Objective To construct a regulatory network of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA)-related competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNA) in low folate combined with methotrexate (MTX) induced neural tube defects (NTDs) mouse model, and to explore the potential lncRNAs regulation in low folate-induced NTDs. Methods Forty SPF-grade 7~8-week-old healthy female C57BL/6J mice (body weight 18~22 g) and 20 healthy male C57BL/6J mice (20~22 g) were selected to this experiment. After a folate deficiency induced fetal mouse NTD model was successfully established, the embryonic brain tissues were extracted for total RNA and RNA high-throughput sequencing (RNA-seq) was performed. The results of RNA-seq were used to carry out co-expression network construction, GO function enrichment of mRNA in co-expression network and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis, construction of lncRNA-related ceRNA regulation network and other bioinformatics analysis. And the relative expression of lncRNA Xist, Sema4f and Padi2 in the fetal mouse and cell samples was