Objective: To characterize transcriptome-wide lincRNAs of Hela-S3 cell line by analyzing RNA sequencing data to provide a foundation for further functional verification and clinical application of cervical carcinoma development.
Results: Single-cell RNA sequencing data of 37 Hela-S3 cells were analysed. On average, 511 lincRNAs were expressed in each cell. Comparing the expression difference of the lincRNAs and protein-coding genes, we found that lincRNAs expression displayed more cell specificity than that of protein-coding genes (t-test, P<2.2E-16). In co-expression network analysis, we identified seven modules and one of them was enriched in pathways of mitotic, packaging of telomere ends, and chromosome maintenance.
Conclusion: incRNAs are specifically expressed and form a network to perform function at single cell level. Their expression was more specific than that of protein-coding genes.
Keywords: Cervical carcinoma; Hela cell line; LincRNAs; RNA-seq.