A bioinformatics analysis of differentially expressed proteins in plasma exosome of acute-on-chronic liver failure patients with different prognoses / 临床肝胆病杂志

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo investigate the differentially expressed proteins in the plasma exosome of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) patients with different prognoses, to analyze their functions and biological processes, and to provide a basis for clinical diagnosis. MethodsA prospective study was performed for 10 ACLF patients who were hospitalized and diagnosed in Beijing YouAn Hospital, Capital Medical University, from July 2019 to October 2019, and the patients were followed up for 90 days. The patients who died or received liver transplantation were enrolled as liver transplantation/death group (5 patients), and the patients who survived were enrolled as survival group (5 patients). The Mann-Whitney U test was used for comparison of general data between the two groups. The label-free quantitative proteomic method was used for identification and quantitative analysis of plasma exosome proteins to screen out differentially expressed proteins, and a functional enrichment analysis was performed. R-3.5.1 software was used to perform a hierarchical cluster analysis of differentially expressed proteins to analyze the biological processes involving these proteins. ResultsA total of 860 proteins were identified by the exosome proteomic analysis, and according to the criteria of upregulation ＞1.2 folds or downregulation ＞1.2 folds (P＜0.05), there were 116 differentially expressed proteins. Compared with the liver transplantation/death group, the survival group had 62 upregulated proteins and 54 downregulated proteins. The bioinformatics analysis showed that these differentially expressed proteins mainly participated in immune reaction, signal transduction, vesicle-mediated transport, cell death, and cell proliferation and were closely associated with the signaling pathways including inflammatory response, carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism, hepatocyte injury, and hepatocyte regeneration. ConclusionDifferentially expressed proteins screened out by the label-free quantitative proteomic method can be used as serological markers for the early diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of ACLF.