Integrated bioinformatics approach to understand immune-related key genes and pathways in chronic spontaneous urticaria

Abstract

Background Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) refers to recurrent urticaria that lasts for more than 6 weeks in the absence of an identifiable trigger. Due to its recurrent wheal and severe itching, CSU seriously affects patients' life quality. There is currently no radical cure for it and its vague pathogenesis limits the development of targeted therapy. With the goal of revealing the underlying mechanism, two data sets with accession numbers GSE57178 and GSE72540 were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. After identifying the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of CSU skin lesion samples and healthy controls, four kinds of analyses were performed, namely functional annotation, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and module construction, co-expression and drug-gene interaction prediction analysis, and immune and stromal cells deconvolution analyses. Results 92 up-regulated genes and 7 down-regulated genes were selected for subsequent analyses. Through the enrichment analysis of the core modules, three signal pathways were found to be closely related to the occurrence and development of CSU, including TNF signaling pathway, NF-κB signaling pathway and Jak-STAT signaling pathway. Referring to protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis and GeneCards database, we identified four key genes, IL6, TLR4, ICAM1, and PTGS2. In addition, according to the results of immune infiltration analysis, CSU tissue generally contained a higher proportion of dendritic cells, Th2 cells, mast cells, megakaryocyte-erythroid progenitor, preadipocytes, and macrophages M1. Conclusions To conclude, the key genes and pathways identified from CSU lesions and normal controls along with the immune infiltration profile may provide new insights into the development of CSU.

Key genes and immune infiltration in chronic spontaneous urticaria: a study of bioinformatics and systems biology

“…A preprint of the study has been published ( https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-137346/v1 ) ( 69 ).…”