scholarly journals Gene correlation network analysis to identify regulatory factors in sciatic nerve injury

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liuxun Li ◽  
Xiaokang Du ◽  
Haiqian Ling ◽  
Yuhang Li ◽  
Xuemin Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Sciatic nerve injury (SNI), which frequently occurs under the traumatic hip and hip fracture dislocation, induces serious complications such as motor and sensory loss, muscle atrophy, or even disabling. The present work aimed to determine the regulating factors and gene network related to the SNI pathology. Methods Sciatic nerve injury dataset GSE18803 with 24 samples was divided into adult group and neonate group. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was carried out to identify modules associated with SNI in the two groups. Moreover, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were determined from every group, separately. Subsequently, co-expression network and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network were overlapped to identify hub genes, while functional enrichment and Reactome analysis were used for a comprehensive analysis of potential pathways. GSE30165 was used as the test set for investigating the hub gene involvement within SNI. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed separately using difference between samples and gene expression level as phenotype label to further prove SNI-related signaling pathways. In addition, immune infiltration analysis was accomplished by CIBERSORT. Finally, Drug–Gene Interaction database (DGIdb) was employed for predicting the possible therapeutic agents. Results 14 SNI status modules and 97 DEGs were identified in adult group, while 15 modules and 21 DEGs in neonate group. A total of 12 hub genes was overlapping from co-expression and PPI network. After the results from both test and training sets were overlapped, we verified that the ten real hub genes showed remarkably up-regulation within SNI. According to functional enrichment of hub genes, the above genes participated in the immune effector process, inflammatory responses, the antigen processing and presentation, and the phagocytosis. GSEA also supported that gene sets with the highest significance were mostly related to the cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction. Analysis of hub genes possible related signaling pathways using gene expression level as phenotype label revealed an enrichment involved in Lysosome, Chemokine signaling pathway, and Neurotrophin signaling pathway. Immune infiltration analysis showed that Macrophages M2 and Regulatory T cells may participate in the development of SNI. At last, 25 drugs were screened from DGIdb to improve SNI treatment. Conclusions The gene expression network is determined in the present work based on the related regulating factors within SNI, which sheds more light on SNI pathology and offers the possible biomarkers and therapeutic targets in subsequent research.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liuxun Li ◽  
Xiaokang Du ◽  
Haiqian Ling ◽  
Yuhang Li ◽  
Xuemin Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Sciatic nerve injury (SNI), which frequently occurs under the traumatic hip and hip fracture dislocation, induces serious complications such as motor and sensory loss, muscle atrophy, or even disabling. The present work aimed to determine the regulating factors and gene network related to the SNI pathology.Methods: Sciatic nerve injury dataset GSE18803 with 24 samples was randomly divided into adult group and neonate group. We performed weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) to identify modules associated with SNI in the two groups. Moreover, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were determined from every group, separately. Subsequently, co-expression network, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, enrichment analysis and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were integrated to identify hub genes and associated pathways. GSE30165 was used as the test set for investigating the hub gene involvement within SNI. Finally, we employed DGIdb for predicting the possible therapeutic agents leading to the abnormal up-regulation of hub genes.Results: 14 SNI status modules and 97 DEGs were identified in adult group, while 15 modules and 21 DEGs in neonate group. A total of 12 hub genes was overlapping from co-expression and PPI network. After the results from both test and training sets were overlapped, we verified that the ten real hub genes showed remarkably up-regulation within SNI. According to functional enrichment of DEGs, the above genes participated in the immune effector process, inflammatory responses, the antigen processing and presentation, and the phagocytosis. GSEA also supported that gene sets with the highest significance was mostly related to the cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction.Conclusions: The gene expression network is determined in the present work based on the related regulating factors within SNI, which sheds more lights on SNI pathology and offers the possible biomarkers and therapeutic targets in subsequent research.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenghua Pan ◽  
Tingting Tang ◽  
Yanke Wu ◽  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Zekai Song ◽  
...  

The tumor microenvironment (TME) has been shown to be involved in angiogenesis, tumor metastasis, and immune response, thereby affecting the treatment and prognosis of patients. This study aims to identify genes that are dysregulated in the TME of patients with colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) and to evaluate their prognostic value based on RNA omics data. We obtained 512 COAD samples from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and 579 COAD patients from the independent dataset (GSE39582) in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The immune/stromal/ESTIMATE score of each patient based on their gene expression was calculated using the ESTIMATE algorithm. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, Cox regression analysis, gene functional enrichment analysis, and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis were performed. We found that immune and stromal scores were significantly correlated with COAD patients’ overall survival (log rank p < 0.05). By comparing the high immune/stromal score group with the low score group, we identified 688 intersection differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from the TCGA dataset (663 upregulated and 25 downregulated). The functional enrichment analysis of intersection DEGs showed that they were mainly enriched in the immune process, cell migration, cell motility, Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. The hub genes were revealed by PPI network analysis. Through Kaplan–Meier and Cox analysis, four TME-related genes that were significantly related to the prognosis of COAD patients were verified in GSE39582. In addition, we uncovered the relationship between the four prognostic genes and immune cells in COAD. In conclusion, based on the RNA expression profiles of 1091 COAD patients, we screened four genes that can predict prognosis from the TME, which may serve as candidate prognostic biomarkers for COAD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiamei Liu ◽  
Shengye Liu ◽  
Xianghong Yang

BackgroundDespite advances in the understanding of neoplasm, patients with cervical cancer still have a poor prognosis. Identifying prognostic markers of cervical cancer may enable early detection of recurrence and more effective treatment.MethodsGene expression profiling data were acquired from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. After data normalization, genes with large variation were screened out. Next, we built co-expression modules by using weighted gene co-expression network analysis to investigate the relationship between the modules and clinical traits related to cervical cancer progression. Functional enrichment analysis was also applied on these co-expressed genes. We integrated the genes into a human protein-protein interaction (PPI) network to expand seed genes and build a co-expression network. For further analysis of the dataset, the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was used to identify seed genes and their correlation to cervical cancer prognosis. Verification was further conducted by qPCR and the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database to measure the expression of hub genes.ResultsUsing WGCNA, we identified 25 co-expression modules from 10,016 genes in 128 human cervical cancer samples. After functional enrichment analysis, the magenta, brown, and darkred modules were selected as the three most correlated modules for cancer progression. Additionally, seed genes in the three modules were combined with a PPI network to identify 31 tumor-specific genes. Hierarchical clustering and Gepia results indicated that the expression quantity of hub genes NDC80, TIPIN, MCM3, MCM6, POLA1, and PRC1 may determine the prognosis of cervical cancer. Finally, TIPIN and POLA1 were further filtered by a LASSO model. In addition, their expression was identified by immunohistochemistry in HPA database as well as a biological experiment.ConclusionOur research provides a co-expression network of gene modules and identifies TIPIN and POLA1 as stable potential prognostic biomarkers for cervical cancer.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xi Pan ◽  
Jian-Hao Liu

Abstract Background Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a heterogeneous carcinoma that the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in the tumor initiation, progression, and migration are largely unclear. The purpose of the present study was to identify key biomarkers and small-molecule drugs for NPC screening, diagnosis, and therapy via gene expression profile analysis. Methods Raw microarray data of NPC were retrieved from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and analyzed to screen out the potential differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The key modules associated with histology grade and tumor stage was identified by using weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA). Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses of genes in the key module were performed to identify potential mechanisms. Candidate hub genes were obtained, which based on the criteria of module membership (MM) and high connectivity. Then we used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to evaluate the diagnostic value of hub genes. The Connectivity map database was further used to screen out small-molecule drugs of hub genes. Results A total of 430 DEGs were identified based on two GEO datasets. The green gene module was considered as key module for the tumor stage of NPC via WGCNA analysis. The results of functional enrichment analysis revealed that genes in the green module were enriched in regulation of cell cycle, p53 signaling pathway, cell part morphogenesis. Furthermore, four DEGs-related hub genes in the green module were considered as the final hub genes. Then ROC revealed that the final four hub genes presented with high areas under the curve, suggesting these hub genes may be diagnostic biomarkers for NPC. Meanwhile, we screened out several small-molecule drugs that have provided potentially therapeutic goals for NPC. Conclusions Our research identified four potential prognostic biomarkers and several candidate small-molecule drugs for NPC, which may contribute to the new insights for NPC therapy.


BMC Genomics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela D. Moré ◽  
Fernando F. Cardoso ◽  
Maurício A. Mudadu ◽  
Wilson Malagó-Jr ◽  
Claudia C. Gulias-Gomes ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Genetic resistance in cattle is considered a suitable way to control tick burden and its consequent losses for livestock production. Exploring tick-resistant (R) and tick-susceptible (S) hosts, we investigated the genetic mechanisms underlying the variation of Braford resistance to tick infestation. Skin biopsies from four-times-artificially infested R (n = 20) and S (n = 19) hosts, obtained before the first and 24 h after the fourth tick infestation were submitted to RNA-Sequencing. Differential gene expression, functional enrichment, and network analysis were performed to identify genetic pathways and transcription factors (TFs) affecting host resistance. Results Intergroup comparisons of hosts before (Rpre vs. Spre) and after (Rpost vs. Spost) tick infestation found 51 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), of which almost all presented high variation (TopDEGs), and 38 were redundant genes. Gene expression was consistently different between R and S hosts, suggesting the existence of specific anti-tick mechanisms. In the intragroup comparisons, Rpost vs. Rpre and Spost vs. Spre, we found more than two thousand DEGs in response to tick infestation in both resistance groups. Redundant and non-redundant TopDEGs with potential anti-tick functions suggested a role in the development of different levels of resistance within the same breed. Leukocyte chemotaxis was over-represented in both hosts, whereas skin degradation and remodeling were only found in TopDEGs from R hosts. Also, these genes indicated the participation of cytokines, such as IL6 and IL22, and the activation of Wingless (WNT)-signaling pathway. A central gene of this pathway, WNT7A, was consistently modulated when hosts were compared. Moreover, the findings based on a genome-wide association study (GWAS) corroborate the prediction of the WNT-signaling pathway as a candidate mechanism of resistance. The regulation of immune response was the most relevant pathway predicted for S hosts. Members of Ap1 and NF-kB families were the most relevant TFs predicted for R and S, respectively. Conclusion This work provides indications of genetic mechanisms presented by Braford cattle with different levels of resistance in response to tick infestation, contributing to the search of candidate genes for tick resistance in bovine.


Author(s):  
Chengzhang Li ◽  
Jiucheng Xu

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major threat to public health. However, few effective therapeutic strategies exist. We aimed to identify potentially therapeutic target genes of HCC by analyzing three gene expression profiles. Methods: The gene expression profiles were analyzed with GEO2R, an interactive web tool for gene differential expression analysis, to identify common differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Functional enrichment analyses were then conducted followed by a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction with the common DEGs. The PPI network was employed to identify hub genes, and the expression level of the hub genes was validated via data mining the Oncomine database. Survival analysis was carried out to assess the prognosis of hub genes in HCC patients. Results: A total of 51 common up-regulated DEGs and 201 down-regulated DEGs were obtained after gene differential expression analysis of the profiles. Functional enrichment analyses indicated that these common DEGs are linked to a series of cancer events. We finally identified 10 hub genes, six of which (OIP5, ASPM, NUSAP1, UBE2C, CCNA2, and KIF20A) are reported as novel HCC hub genes. Data mining the Oncomine database validated that the hub genes have a significant high level of expression in HCC samples compared normal samples (t-test, p < 0.05). Survival analysis indicated that overexpression of the hub genes is associated with a significant reduction (p < 0.05) in survival time in HCC patients. Conclusions: We identified six novel HCC hub genes that might be therapeutic targets for the development of drugs for some HCC patients.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pejman Morovat ◽  
Saman Morovat ◽  
Arash M. Ashrafi ◽  
Shahram Teimourian

Abstract Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide, which has a high mortality rate and poor treatment outcomes with yet unknown molecular basis. It seems that gene expression plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) can interact with microRNAs (miRNAs) to regulate gene expression in various malignancies by acting as competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs). However, the potential pathogenesis roles of the ceRNA network among circRNA/miRNA/mRNA in HCC are unclear. In this study, first, the HCC circRNA expression data were obtained from three Gene Expression Omnibus microarray datasets (GSE164803, GSE94508, GSE97332), and the differentially expressed circRNAs (DECs) were identified using R limma package. Also, the liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) miRNA and mRNA sequence data were retrieved from TCGA, and differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMIs) and mRNAs (DEGs) were determined using the R DESeq2 package. Second, CSCD website was used to uncover the binding sites of miRNAs on DECs. The DECs' potential target miRNAs were revealed by conducting an intersection between predicted miRNAs from CSCD and downregulated DEMIs. Third, some related genes were uncovered by intersecting targeted genes predicted by miRWalk and targetscan online tools with upregulated DEGs. The ceRNA network was then built using the Cytoscape software. The functional enrichment and the overall survival time of these potential targeted genes were analyzed, and a PPI network was constructed in the STRING database. Network visualization was performed by Cytoscape, and ten hub genes were detected using the CytoHubba plugin tool. Four DECs (hsa_circ_0000520, hsa_circ_0008616, hsa_circ_0070934, hsa_circ_0004315) were obtained and six miRNAs (hsa-miR-542-5p, hsa-miR-326, hsa-miR-511-5p, hsa-miR-195-5p, hsa-miR-214-3p, and hsa-miR-424-5p) which are regulated by the above DECs were identified. Then 543 overlapped genes regulated by six miRNAs mentioned above were predicted. Functional enrichment analysis showed that these genes are mostly associated with cancer regulation functions. Ten hub genes (TTK،AURKB, KIF20A، KIF23، CEP55، CDC6، DTL، NCAPG، CENPF، PLK4) have been screened from the PPI network of the 204 survival-related genes. KIF20A, NCAPG, TTK, PLK4, and CDC6 were selected for the highest significant p-values. In the end, a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory axis was established for five final selected hub genes. This study implies the potential pathogenesis of the obtained network and proposes that the two DECs (has_circ_0070934 and has_circ_0004315) may be important prognostic factor for HCC.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0257343
Author(s):  
Shaoshuo Li ◽  
Baixing Chen ◽  
Hao Chen ◽  
Zhen Hua ◽  
Yang Shao ◽  
...  

Objectives Smoking is a significant independent risk factor for postmenopausal osteoporosis, leading to genome variations in postmenopausal smokers. This study investigates potential biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of smoking-related postmenopausal osteoporosis (SRPO). Materials and methods The GSE13850 microarray dataset was downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Gene modules associated with SRPO were identified using weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, and pathway and functional enrichment analyses. Feature genes were selected using two machine learning methods: support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) and random forest (RF). The diagnostic efficiency of the selected genes was assessed by gene expression analysis and receiver operating characteristic curve. Results Eight highly conserved modules were detected in the WGCNA network, and the genes in the module that was strongly correlated with SRPO were used for constructing the PPI network. A total of 113 hub genes were identified in the core network using topological network analysis. Enrichment analysis results showed that hub genes were closely associated with the regulation of RNA transcription and translation, ATPase activity, and immune-related signaling. Six genes (HNRNPC, PFDN2, PSMC5, RPS16, TCEB2, and UBE2V2) were selected as genetic biomarkers for SRPO by integrating the feature selection of SVM-RFE and RF. Conclusion The present study identified potential genetic biomarkers and provided a novel insight into the underlying molecular mechanism of SRPO.


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