Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of Preterm Placental Tissue with Maternal Diabetes, Obesity and Periodontitis Diseases Using Integrated Bioinformatics Approach
Abstract Preterm birth (PTB) is one of the major reasons of infant mortalities and morbidities worldwide. Exact mechanism of this disease has not been elucidated yet but studies have shown several factors which have been found associated with the disease. Through several studies, it has been discovered that different chronic diseases like obesity, type 1 diabetes and periodontitis are also associated with PTB but no omics studies have yet been performed to discover their association. In the current study, comparative transcriptome analysis of the preterm birth with type 1 diabetes, obesity and periodontitis using integrated bioinformatics approach was performed to validate their association with preterm birth. Four different datasets retrieved from Gene expression omnibus (GEO) were processed through Bioconductor packages in R. Pairwise comparison of preterm was performed with all three diseases. Several bioinformatics tools were used such as DAVID for Gene ontology (GO) terms and pathway analysis, DIA for impact and direction of KEGG pathways and Cytoscape along with its different plugins for construction of networks, identification of hub genes and modules. Significant number of common differentially expressed genes between datasets and their roles in different pathways were identified. Most of the significant genes and pathways found in these comparisons were involved in initiating different inflammatory processes, degradation of proteins leading to preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), preeclampsia, and cancer which are the known risk factors of PTB. According to our results, all these three chronic diseases were found to have a strong association with PTB.