Screening and analysis of hub genes for pediatric sepsis based on bioinformatics / 中华检验医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To screen and analyze the hub genes/gene panel for pediatric sepsis by bioinformatics methods.Methods:The pediatric sepsis chip datasets GSE66099 uploaded on Feb 19, 2015 and GSE145227 uploaded on Feb 13, 2020 were obtained from the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database and used to screen out the differentially expressed mRNA (DEmRNA) by the limma package. The Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were applied and performed for the functional and pathway enrichment analysis subsequently. The online database STRING and Cytoscape software were used to construct a protein interaction network (PPI) for DEmRNA and screen the hub gene. R package was used to analyze the expression and diagnostic significance of hub genes.Results:In this study, 160 total DEmRNA including 126 up-regulated mRNA and 34 down-regulated mRNA were obtained. By GO functional enrichment analysis, the results showed that DEmRNA were mainly enriched and focused on these areas neutrophil activation, neutrophil degranulation, T cell activation and regulation of lymphocyte activation. KEGG enrichment pathway analysis showed that DEmRNA was mainly involved in signaling pathways including natural killer cell-mediated cytotoxicity and neutrophil extracellular trap formation. Ten DEGs (ARG1, RETN, MMP9, C3AR1, LCN2, FPR2, CCL5, CEACAM8, ELANE and DEFA4) as hub genes were screened by STRING and Cytoscape. A gene panel with 10 members had significant differences and the area under the ROC curve of each hub gene was greater than 0.7.Conclusion:By bioinformatics analysis, we find 10 genes that play an important role in the progression of pediatric sepsis, and provide a new theoretical basis for the diagnosis, prognostic markers and potential therapeutic targets of pediatric sepsis.