Differential expression of genes associated with sports injuries

Abstract

Candidate gene studies in sports injuries pose a valid new approach to investigate the genetic basis of these. In this context, our objective was to analyze the differential expression and interaction of genes associated with sports injuries using a bio informatic approach. For this study, we analyzed 31 genes associated with sports injuries previously reported in the literature. Expression analysis was performed using the Z-ratio and a protein-protein interaction network was constructed in STRING 10.0. The GO categories associated with outstanding biological processes in the network were also taken from STRING 10.0. The expression network obtained allowed establishing three clusters with a significant number of interactions, the highest interactions were found in the genes COL1A1, COL1A2, COL3A1, COL4A1, COL6A1 and COL5A1. According to the Z-ratio, the most over expressed genes were ITGB6 (z-ratio 4.32), COL1A2 (z-ratio 4.07), COL6A2 (z-ratio 3.99) and TIMM17A. In conclusion, the over-expression of genes is presented, which according to the current literature has been analyzed very little, from the sports field associated with sports injuries, a fact that merits further research. Also, we highlight the importance of bioinformatics as a complementary tool to the analysis of sports genomic data.