Identification of Potential Key Genes Involved in the Carotid Atherosclerosis

Abstract

Purpose

Carotid atherosclerosis is a kind of systemic atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries. However, the efficiency of treatment is insufficient. Therefore, it is urgent to find therapeutic targets and deepen the understanding of carotid atherosclerosis.

Materials and Methods

In this study, we analyzed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between atheroma plaque and macroscopically intact tissue (control samples). Furthermore, we performed Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis based on the DEGs. Four methods were used to identify the hub genes in the protein–protein interaction networks of the DEGs. Furthermore, we also performed network module analysis to reveal carotid atherosclerosis-related gene modules and biological functions.

Results

The enrichment results showed that the biological functions were related to inflammation, immunity, chemokine and cell adhesion molecule, such as PIK-Akt signaling pathway, Rap1 signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway and B cell receptor signaling pathway. In addition, we screened the hub genes. A total of 16 up-regulated genes (C3AR1, CCR1, CCR2, CD33, CD53, CXCL10, CXCL8, CXCR4, CYBB, FCER1G, FPR2, ITGAL, ITGAM, ITGAX, ITGB2, and LILRB2) were identified as hub genes. A total of 5 gene modules were obtained. We found that biological functions obtained for each cluster were mostly related to immunity, chemokines and cell adhesion molecules.

Conclusion

The present study identified key DEGs in atheroma plaque compared with control samples. The key genes involved in the development of carotid atherosclerosis may provide valuable therapeutic targets for carotid atherosclerosis.

Keywords:

• identification of key genes
• carotid atherosclerosis
• cluster analysis

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Project of Qingxiu District of Nanning Scientific Research and Technology Development Plan (2019039 and 2020058), the Scientific Research Project of Guangxi Health Commission (Z20200212), the High-Level Medical Expert Training Program of Guangxi “139” Plan Funding (G201903049), and Guangxi medical and health key discipline construction project (Department of Cardiology and Department of Emergency Medicine).

Data Sharing Statement

Data were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest related to this work.