A comprehensive (biological and computational) investigation on the role of microRNA::mRNA regulations performed in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer (LC) are two serious diseases that present a major health problem worldwide. However, genetic contribution to both diseases remains unclear, including various regulation mechanisms at genetic level resulting in the progression from COPD to LC. In this paper, we describe our comprehensive methodologies, which seamlessly integrate both biological (conducted in “wet labs”) and computational (based on domain ontologies and semantic technologies) approaches, to investigate the important role of microRNA::mRNA regulations performed in COPD and LC. We discovered two genes, RGS6 and PARK2, that are strongly associated with the risk of developing either COPD or LC or both; additionally, we also identified two sets of microRNAs that are computationally predicted to regulate RGS6 and PARK2, respectively. These microRNAs can be further biologically verified in the future and serve as novel biomarkers in COPD and/or LC.