scholarly journals Bioinformatics analysis of the differentially co-expressed genes and immune cell infiltration features associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension

Author(s):  
Wenshi Liu ◽  
Dongdong Zheng ◽  
Wenjing Lv ◽  
Ying Hua ◽  
Rong Huang ◽  
...  

IntroductionThis study aimed to identify novel differentially co-expressed genes and to investigate the features of immune cell infiltration in PAH.Material and methodsThe GSE113439 and GSE117261 datasets were acquired from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. And the differentially expressed genes between PAH and control groups were identified based on the GSE117261 dataset. Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) was adopted to analyze the pre-processed data. Functional enrichment analysis was then carried out to explore the biological functions of these genes modules. The differentially co-expressed key genes modules were in-depth verified by GEO2R analysis. The immune infiltration in PAH was investigated by Cell type Identification By Estimating Relative Subsets Of RNA Transcripts (CIBERSORT).ResultsWGCNA analysis found 15 differentially co-expressed genes modules, amongst which module blue indicated that it exhibited the strongest positive link to PAH, whereas module green presented the strongest negative association with PAH. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis indicated that the genes in module blue were largely enriched in Lysosome, Complement, and coagulation cascades, and others, while the genes in module green were primarily enriched in the Chemokine signaling pathway, Platelet activation, etc. Integrin subunit alpha M (ITGAM) was identified as the differentially co-expressed key gene. Immune infiltration analysis by CIBERSORT showed that the differences between PAH and control groups or between PAH subgroups.ConclusionsITGAM was considered a promising biomarker to discriminate PAH from the control. Obvious differences were observed in immune infiltration between patients with PAH and normal groups.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Li Zhang ◽  
Yunlong Yang ◽  
Dechun Geng ◽  
Yonghua Wu

Background. Osteoporosis is characterized by low bone mass, deterioration of bone tissue structure, and susceptibility to fracture. New and more suitable therapeutic targets need to be discovered. Methods. We collected osteoporosis-related datasets (GSE56815, GSE99624, and GSE63446). The methylation markers were obtained by differential analysis. Degree, DMNC, MCC, and MNC plug-ins were used to screen the important methylation markers in PPI network, then enrichment analysis was performed. ROC curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic effect of osteoporosis. In addition, we evaluated the difference in immune cell infiltration between osteoporotic patients and control by ssGSEA. Finally, differential miRNAs in osteoporosis were used to predict the regulators of key methylation markers. Results. A total of 2351 differentially expressed genes and 5246 differentially methylated positions were obtained between osteoporotic patients and controls. We identified 19 methylation markers by PPI network. They were mainly involved in biological functions and signaling pathways such as apoptosis and immune inflammation. HIST1H3G, MAP3K5, NOP2, OXA1L, and ZFPM2 with higher AUC values were considered key methylation markers. There were significant differences in immune cell infiltration between osteoporotic patients and controls, especially dendritic cells and natural killer cells. The correlation between MAP3K5 and immune cells was high, and its differential expression was also validated by other two datasets. In addition, NOP2 was predicted to be regulated by differentially expressed hsa-miR-3130-5p. Conclusion. Our efforts aim to provide new methylation markers as therapeutic targets for osteoporosis to better treat osteoporosis in the future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Gao ◽  
Sheng Yin ◽  
Haiyan Sun ◽  
Zhuyan Shao ◽  
Peipei Shi ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1) plays a vital role in tumor progression of some cancer types, but little is known whether it is a bystander or an actual player on driving immune infiltration in ovarian cancer.Methods: In this study, the expression of SPP1 was identified by Oncomine, GEPIA and TIMER databases, and SPP1 immumohistochemical staining analysis was assessed by The HPA database. The clinical outcomes between SPP1 expression and ovarian cancer patients were evaluated via Kaplan-Meier Plotter and PrognoScan dataset. Immune infiltration analyses were explored using TIMER and TISIDB dataset. In addition, Functional enrichment analyses were performed with Metascape and GeneMANIA database.Results: SPP1 was found overexpressed in ovarian tumor tissues and high SPP1 expression was correlated with shorter OS and PFS survivals. Particularly, elevated SPP1 expression was significantly associated with stage III ovarian cancer. Notably, SPP1 expression was positively correlated with infiltrating levels of CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells. Furthermore, SPP1 expression showed strong correlations with diverse immune hallmark sets in ovarian cancer. Of particular importance, functional enrichment analysis suggested that SPP1 strong related with immune response.Conclusions: These findings imply that SPP1 is correlated with prognosis and immune cell infiltrating, offering a new potential immunotherapeutic target in ovarian cancer.Trial registration: Not applicable.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Zhu ◽  
Gang Wang ◽  
Haixing Zhu ◽  
Aman Xu

Abstract Background: Integrin Subunit Alpha 5 (ITGA5) belongs to the integrin alpha chain family, is vital for promoting cancer cell invasion, metastasis. However, the correlation between ITGA5 expression and immune infiltration in gastrointestinal (GI) tumors remain unclear.Methods: The expression levels of ITGA5 were detected by Oncomine and Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER). The association between ITGA5 and prognosis of patients was identified by Kaplan–Meier plotter, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis 2(GEPIA2) and PrognoScan. We evaluated the correlation between ITGA5 expression and immune infiltrating level via TIMER. Besides, TIMER and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining were used to explore correlations between ITGA5 expression and markers of immune infiltrates cells. Furthermore, we constructed protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and performed functional enrichment by GeneMANIA and Metascape.Results: ITGA5 was generally overexpressed and correlated with worse prognosis in multiple types of GI tumors. In addition, ITGA5 expression levels was significantly associated with tumor purity and immune infiltration levels of different immune cells in GI tumors. Interestingly, Immune markers for monocytes, tumor - associated macrophages (TAMs), macrophages 2 (M2) cells and T-helper 2 (Th2) cells were found to be significantly and positively correlated with ITGA5 expression levels in colon and gastric cancer. Results from IHC staining further proved that markers of Th2 and M2 cell were significantly increased in gastric cancer patients with high ITGA5 expression levels. Lastly, interaction network and function enrichment analysis revealed ITGA5 were mainly involved in “integrin mediated signaling pathway”, “leukocyte migration”, “cell-substrate adhesion”.Conclutions: our study demonstrated that ITGA5 may act as an essential regulator of tumor immune cell infiltration and a valuable prognostic biomarker in GI tumors. Additional work is needed to fully elucidate the underlying mechanisms behind these observations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaofeng Wang ◽  
Kun Zhang ◽  
Li Geng ◽  
DongLi Liu

Abstract Background: Secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1) functions as a tumor promoter in varies tumors, but little is known whether it is an actual player on driving immune infiltration in hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: In this study, we identified the expression of SPP1 by Oncomine, GEPIA and TIMER databases, and assessed SPP1 immumohistochemical staining analysis by The HPA database. We evaluated the clinical outcomes between SPP1 expression and hepatocellular carcinoma patients via Kaplan-Meier Plotter. We also tested the relationship between SPP1 and critical oncogenes by TIMER and GEPIA databases. Then we explored immune infiltration analyses using TIMER and TISIDB datasets. In addition, we performed functional enrichment analyses with Metascape and GeneMANIA databases. Results: We found that SPP1 overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and high SPP1 expression was correlated with shorter OS and PFS survivals in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. SPP1 expression is positive correlation with critical oncogenes related stemness associated genes, cell cycle and proliferation, therapeutic resistance, metastasis, and tumor angiogenesis in hepatocellular carcinoma. Importantly, SPP1 expression was positively correlated with infiltrating levels of CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells. Furthermore, SPP1 expression showed strong correlations with diverse immune hallmark sets in hepatocellular carcinoma. Notably, functional enrichment analysis suggested that SPP1 strong related with immune response. Conclusions: These findings imply that SPP1 is correlated with prognosis and immune cell infiltrating, offering a new potential immunotherapeutic target in hepatocellular carcinoma.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Wu ◽  
Yadong Wang ◽  
Hang Liu ◽  
Jukun Song ◽  
Jie Ding

Abstract The immune infiltration of patients with gastric cancer (GC) is closely associated with clinical prognosis. However, previous studies failed to explain the different subsets of immune cells involved in immune responses and diverse functions. The present study aimed to uncover the differences in immunophenotypes in a tumor microenvironment (TME) between adjacent and tumor tissues and to explore their therapeutic targets. In our study, the relative proportion of immune cells in 229 GC tumor samples and 22 paired matched tissues was evaluated with a Cell type Identification By Estimating Relative Subsets Of known RNA Transcripts (CIBERSORT) algorithm. The correlation between immune cell infiltration and clinical information was analyzed. The proportion of 22 immune cell subsets was assessed to determine the correlation between each immune cell type and clinical features. Three molecular subtypes were identified with ‘CancerSubtypes’ R-package. Functional enrichment was analyzed in each subtype. The profiles of immune infiltration in the GC cohort from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) varied significantly between the 22 paired tissues. TNM stage was associated with M1 macrophages and eosinophils. Follicular helper T cells were activated at the late stage. Monocytes were associated with radiation therapy. Three clustering processes were obtained via the ‘CancerSubtypes’ R-package. Each cancer subtype had a specific molecular classification and subtype-specific characterization. These findings showed that the CIBERSOFT algorithm could be used to detect differences in the composition of immune-infiltrating cells in GC samples, and these differences might be an important driver of GC progression and treatment response.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naiqiang Zhu ◽  
Jingyi Hou

Abstract Background: Sarcomas, cancers originating from mesenchymal cells, are comprehensive tumors with poor prognoses, yet their tumorigenic mechanisms are largely unknown. In this study, we characterize infiltrating immune cells and analyze immune scores to identify the molecular mechanism of immunologic response to sarcomas.Method: The “CIBERSORT” algorithm was used to calculate the amount of L22 immune cell infiltration in sarcomas. Then, the “ESTIMATE” algorithm was used to assess the “Estimate,” “Immune,” and “Stromal” scores. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was utilized to identify the significant module related to the immune therapeutic target. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed using the “clusterProfiler” package in R for annotation and visualization. Results: Macrophages were the most common immune cells infiltrating sarcomas. The number of CD8 T cells was negatively associated with that of M0 and M2 macrophages, and positively associated with M macrophages in sarcomas samples. The clinical parameters (disease type, gender) significantly increased with higher Estimate, Immune, and Stromal scores, and with a better prognosis. The blue module was significantly associated with CD8 T cells. Functional enrichment analysis showed that the blue module was mainly involved in chemokine signaling and the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. CD48, P2RY10 and RASAL3 were identified and validated at the protein level.Conclusion: Based on the immune cell infiltration and immune microenvironment, three key genes were identified, thus presenting novel molecular mechanisms of sarcoma metastasis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naiqiang Zhu ◽  
Jingyi Hou

Abstract Background: Sarcomas, cancers originating from mesenchymal cells, are comprehensive tumors with poor prognoses, yet their tumorigenic mechanisms are largely unknown. In this study, we characterize infiltrating immune cells and analyze immune scores to identify the molecular mechanism of immunologic response to sarcomas.Method: The “CIBERSORT” algorithm was used to calculate the amount of L22 immune cell infiltration in sarcomas. Then, the “ESTIMATE” algorithm was used to assess the “Estimate,” “Immune,” and “Stromal” scores. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was utilized to identify the significant module related to the immune therapeutic target. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed using the “clusterProfiler” package in R for annotation and visualization. Results: Macrophages were the most common immune cells infiltrating sarcomas. The number of CD8 T cells was negatively associated with that of M0 and M2 macrophages, and positively associated with M macrophages in sarcomas samples. The clinical parameters (disease type, gender) significantly increased with higher Estimate, Immune, and Stromal scores, and with a better prognosis. The blue module was significantly associated with CD8 T cells. Functional enrichment analysis showed that the blue module was mainly involved in chemokine signaling and the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. CD48, P2RY10 and RASAL3 were identified and validated at the protein level.Conclusion: Based on the immune cell infiltration and immune microenvironment, three key genes were identified, thus presenting novel molecular mechanisms of sarcoma metastasis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naiqiang Zhu ◽  
Jingyi Hou

Abstract Background Sarcomas, cancers originating from mesenchymal cells, are comprehensive tumors with poor prognoses, yet their tumorigenic mechanisms are largely unknown. In this study, we aimed to characterize infiltrating immune cells and genes associated with the immunologic response to sarcomas. Method The “CIBERSORT” algorithm was used to calculate the amount of L22 immune cell infiltration in sarcomas. Then, the “ESTIMATE” algorithm was used to assess the “Estimate,” “Immune,” and “Stromal” scores. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was utilized to identify the significant module related to the immune therapeutic target. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gens and Genomes (KEGG) analysis were applied using the “clusterProfiler” package in R for annotation and visualization. Results Macrophages were the most common immune cells infiltrating sarcomas. The number of CD8 T cells was negatively associated with that of M0 and M2 macrophages, and positively associated with M macrophages in sarcomas samples. The clinical parameters (disease type, gender) significantly increased with higher Estimate, Immune, and Stromal scores, and with a better prognosis. The blue module was significantly associated with CD8 T cells. Functional enrichment analysis showed that the blue module was mainly involved in chemokine signaling and the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. CD48, P2RY10 and RASAL3 were identified and validated at the protein level. Conclusion Based on the immune cell infiltration and immune microenvironment, three key genes were identified, which suggest novel molecular mechanisms of sarcoma metastasis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuwei Gu ◽  
Chao Wang ◽  
Shengsen Chen ◽  
Jia Tang ◽  
Xiaoxiao Guo ◽  
...  

The burden of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide is increasing over time, while the underlying molecular mechanism of HCC development is still under exploration. Pseudogenes are classified as a special type of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), and they played a vital role in regulating tumor-associated gene expression. Here, we report that a pseudogene peptidylprolyl isomerase A pseudogene 22 (PPIAP22) and its parental gene peptidylprolyl isomerase A (PPIA) were upregulated in HCC and were associated with the clinical outcomes of HCC. Further investigation revealed that PPIAP22 might upregulate the expression of PPIA through sponging microRNA (miR)-197-3p, behaving as competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA). PPIA could participate in the development of HCC by regulating mRNA metabolic process and tumor immunity based on the functional enrichment analysis. We also found a strong correlation between the expression levels of PPIA and the immune cell infiltration or the expression of chemokines, especially macrophage, C-C motif chemokine ligand 15 (CCL15), and C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12). Our findings demonstrate that the PPIAP22/miR-197-3p/PPIA axis plays a vital role in the progression of HCC by increasing the malignancy of tumor cells and regulating the immune cell infiltration, especially macrophage, through CCL15-CCR1 or CXCL12-CXCR4/CXCR7 pathways.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiao Yang ◽  
Fei Lu ◽  
Guangxin Ma ◽  
Yihua Pang ◽  
Yanan Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Cadherin-23 (CDH23), which plays an important role in intercellular adhesion, is involved in the progression of several types of cancer. However, the biological functions and impact of CDH23 expression on the prognosis of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are yet to be explored. Herein, we aim to characterize the role and molecular functions of CDH23 in AML.Methods: The expression level of CDH23 were assessed in patients with AML by Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA). The prognostic value of CDH23 was analyzed via GEPIA and LinkedOmics. Correlation analysis and biology function analysis were conducted by LinkedOmics and GeneMANIA database. Relationship of CDH23 with immune infiltration level was detected by TIMER. Results: In the present study, aberrant overexpression of CDH23 was first confirmed in patients with AML and contributed to poor prognosis. Notably, we observed a negative correlation between CDH23 mRNA expression and immune cell infiltration by calculating the ESTIMATE score. In addition, functional enrichment analysis confirmed that CDH23 plays a crucial role in tumor immunity. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that upregulation of CDH23 expression corresponded to shortened overall survival of patients with AML. CDH23 may be involved in mediating tumor immunity, and this highlights the potential of CDH23 as a therapeutic target in AML.


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