ABSTRACT
ObjectiveTo investigate the distribution of vascular cognitive impairment （VCI） with kidney Yang deficiency syndrome and explore the biological nature of VCI with kidney Yang deficiency syndrome from the perspective of DNA methylation under the combination of disease and syndrome， so as to provide an epigenetic target for traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） treatment of this disease with this syndrome in the future. MethodCommunity residents in Beijing were screened out for cognitive impairment from September 2020 to November 2022 through the scale， and VCI patients were analyzed for the syndrome. VCI patients with kidney Yang deficiency syndrome and healthy people were enrolled in this study. Peripheral venous blood was collected and subjected to genome-wide DNA methylation detection by Illumina Human Methylation 850K BeadChip. Then， differentially methylated genes （DMGs） were screened out for bioinformatics analysis. ResultA total of 1 902 people were investigated in this study， and 201 of them had VCI， accounting for 10.57%， including 72.14% with kidney Yang deficiency syndrome. The methylation results showed that compared with the normal group， the VCI group had 386 differential methylation sites， and 136 DMGs were annotated. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genomes（KEGG） signaling pathway enrichment analysis showed that the DMGs between the two groups were mainly involved in mammalian target of rapamycin（mTOR） signaling pathway， Estrogen signaling pathway， cyclic adenosine monophosphate（cAMP） signaling pathway， etc. Protein-protein interaction （PPI） analysis showed that DMGs， such as epidermal growth factor receptor（EGFR）， epidermal growth factor （EGF）， and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3（STAT3）， played important roles in the network. ConclusionKidney Yang deficiency is the main syndrome in VCI patients. DMGs including EGFR， EGF， and STAT3 and the related pathways such as mTOR signaling pathway， Estrogen signaling pathway， and cAMP signaling pathway may play a vital role in the occurrence and development of VCI with kidney Yang deficiency syndrome.