Comparative analysis of protein-coding genes and long non-coding RNAs of prostate cancer between Caucasian and Chinese populations

Prostate cancer is one of the most important public health problems in developed countries. To date, a systematic understanding of the pathogenesis of prostate cancer is still lacking. In this work, we identified differentially expressed protein-coding genes and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) between normal and cancer tissues based on a recent RNA-seq study from Caucasian population. We then investigated the relationship between differentially expressed genes and lncRNAs. Furthermore, based on a recently published prostate cancer study on Chinese population, we identified differentially expressed genes between Caucasian and Chinese populations to investigate racial difference. Moreover, for the first time, we compared the correlation of lncRNA-gene across populations. In the end, a lot of differentially expressed genes and lncRNAs were identified. Our results revealed that most of the lncRNA-gene pairs were positively correlated especially for the lncRNA-host gene pairs, indicating the probable mechanism of lncRNA. And 320 genes were differentially expressed in prostate cancer across populations, which may help us to investigate the ethnic differences of prostate cancer. In addition, our results suggested that lncRNAs regulate genes in different manners across populations. Our findings may help understand molecular events underlying prostate cancer development.