Anoikis and SPP1 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: integrating bioinformatics, cell, and animal studies to explore prognostic biomarkers and PI3K/AKT signaling regulation

ABSTRACT

Objective

This study aims to explore the relevance of anoikis in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and identify associated biomarkers and signaling pathways.

Method

Unsupervised consensus cluster analysis was employed to categorize IPF patients into subtypes. We utilized Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) and Protein-Protein Interaction network construction to identify anoikis-related modules and key genes. A prognostic signature was developed using Lasso and multivariate Cox regression analysis. Single-cell sequencing assessed hub gene expression in various cell types, and both cell and animal experiments confirmed IPF-related pathways.

Results

We identified two distinct anoikis-associated subtypes with differing prognoses. WGCNA revealed essential hub genes, with SPP1 being prominent in the anoikis-related signature. The anoikis-related signature is effective in determining the prognosis of patients with IPF. Single-cell sequencing highlighted significant differences in SPP1 expression, notably elevated in fibroblasts derived from IPF patients. In vivo and in vitro experiments demonstrated that SPP1 enhances fibrosis in mouse lung fibroblasts by regulating p27 through the PI3K/Akt pathway.

Conclusion

Our research demonstrates a robust prognostic signature associated with anoikis and highlights SPP1 as a pivotal regulator of the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in pulmonary fibrosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
• anoikis
• SPP1
• prognosis
• PI3K

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Ethical approval

The animal experimental procedures were carried out with the approval of the Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences · Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital Medical Ethics Committee (Approval No. 2023–415).

Author contribution statement

Y Liao: Methodology and Writing – review & editing. Y Yang and Q Zuo: Writing – original draft and data curation. L Chen and Y Yang: Formal analysis. S Guo: Data analysis. J Zou: Conceptualization and supervision. G Zhou: Visualization and validation.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1744666X.2024.2315218.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by Key research and development project of Sichuan Science and Technology Plan (2022YFS0023)