Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is one of the major pelvic floor disorders affecting postmenopausal women. To investigate the lncRNA and mRNA expression profiling of SUI in postmenopausal women, we used a microarray analysis to examine the differentially expressed long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in the periurethral vaginal wall of postmenopausal women with SUI. A total of 8840 lncRNAs and 7102 mRNAs were dysregulated in the two groups (absolute fold change ≥ 2 and P < 0.05). The expression levels of five randomly selected lncRNAs and mRNAs were validated by quantitative real-time PCR. A functional analysis revealed that several lncRNAs are involved in the lysosome pathway associated with extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling. In addition, we also found several mRNAs involved in fibroblast pseudopodia formation, fibroblast growth, and the regulation of smooth muscle cell differentiation in the urinary tract. Our study offers essential data regarding differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs and may provide new potential candidates for the study of SUI.
Keywords: Microarray; Stress urinary incontinence; lncRNA; mRNA.