Study on the Differentially Expressed Genes and Signaling Pathways in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Using Integrated Bioinformatics Method

Abstract

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic immune connective tissue disease, which is common in women of childbearing age and easy to cause multiple organ inflammatory injury. The occurrence of prostate cancer is the result of multiple factors and genes, but we have little understanding of the mechanism involved. In this study, we deeply explored and analyzed the existing gene data in GEO database in order to find the key genes and new therapeutic targets of SLE.Results: The expression profile dataset of GDS4185, GDS4888, GDS4889 and GDS4890 containing 99 specimens, 42 cases of SLE patients and 57 cases of normal volunteers, were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) website. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in different tissues was analyzed by statistical hypothesis T test. The gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis was carried out by the DAVID online tool. KEGG pathway annotation of DEGs was carried out by the KOBAS online computing database. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks of the DEGs were built from the STRING website and Cytoscape software. A total of 839 DEGs were calculated from the four GEO datasets. The GO and KEGG analysis indicated that the functions of DEGs mostly participated in the Osteoclast differentiation, HTLV-I infection, Measles, FoxO signaling pathway, Herpes simplex infection, Primary immunodeficiency, Jak-STAT signaling pathway. The following 14 closely related genes, HERC5, TP53, CDC20, GNB2, GNB4, PPP2R1A, GNAI2, PMCH, SOCS3, HERC6, STAT1, SOCS1, ISG15, IFIT3, were key nodes from the PPI network. These genes may have synergistic or indirect interactions with each other in the process of biological metabolism inducing the pathogenesis of SLE.Conclusion: Mining geo database has great scientific research value. In the future, scientific research must fully excavate a variety of database analysis methods. In this study, the screened candidate genes provide effective theoretical basis for the diagnosis, treatment, expected evaluation and related laboratory research of SLE, which are worthy of further experimental verification.