Identification and Validation of Potential Hub Genes Correlated With Ulcerative Colitis Through Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis

Abstract

Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic nonspecific intestinal inflammatory disorder associated with continuous, diffuse inflammatory alterations in the colonic mucosa of unknown etiology, Increasing evidence has showed aberrant expression of gene plays a vital function in the pathophysiological mechanisms of ulcerative colitis, Herein, we employed bioinformatics to investigate the core of the pathogenesis and provide potential markers for UC. Results: We downloaded the GSE36807, GSE65114, GSE59071 datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus(GEO), then the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were determined using adjusted P＜0. 05 and |log2FC>2 | between normal samples and UC samples. Intersection analysis among three datasets showed 12 DEGs were found to be significantly dysregulated in UC. Results indicated that the DEGs were primarily associated with functions like the humoral immune response, antimicrobial humoral response, and CXCR chemokine receptor binding, and they were primarily enriched in KEGG pathways, including the IL−17 signaling pathway, and Toll−like receptor signaling pathway . Cytoscape software calculated that CXCL8, DMBT1, REG3A, S100A8, DUOX2, and MMP1 were hub genes of UC. In addition, We collected samples of 8 UC tissues and 8 normal Colonic tissues to validate the selected genes by mRNA microarray.Conclusions: These results may provide potential biomarkers for UC, and our data and methodology provides new ideas that may be helpful in the understanding of the vital mechanisms underlying UC development.