膜性肾病中M2巨噬细胞相关基因的生物信息学分析

Bioinformatic analysis of genes associated with M2 macrophages in membranous nephropathy

目的通过生物信息学分析探讨膜性肾病(MN)中有关M2巨噬细胞的免疫分子机制。方法从基因表达集(GEO)数据库下载微阵列数据集(GSE104948和GSE108109,其中GSE108109作为验证数据集),使用Timer数据库进行免疫浸润分析。以M2巨噬细胞作为表型进行加权基因共表达网络分析,筛选M2巨噬细胞相关核心基因。从差异表达基因和核心基因的交集确定潜在关键基因。利用数据集GSE108109验证潜在关键基因的表达水平,以接受者操作特征(ROC)曲线分析评估其诊断价值。结果M2巨噬细胞在MN组和正常对照组之间显著不同。确定了6个M2巨噬细胞相关的关键基因:PPARGC1A、ESRRG、KCNJ16、HLF、HGD和SULT1C2。ROC曲线分析显示,以上6个基因的ROC曲线下面积值均大于0.85。结论本研究发现了有关MN中M2巨噬细胞的6个基因,尚需进一步研究验证其在MN中的作用。

Objective This study aimed to explore the immune molecular mechanisms related to M2 macrophages in membranous nephropathy(MN)through bioinformatics analysis.Methods Microarray datasets(GSE104948 and GSE108109,with GSE108109 as the validation dataset)were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus(GEO)database.And immune infiltration analysis was performed using the Timer database.M2 macrophages were used as a phenotype for weighted gene co-expression network analysis in order to screen M2 macrophage-related hub genes.Differentially expressed genes and the hub genes were then intersected to identify potential key genes.Meanwhile,the expression levels of the potential key genes were validated in dataset GSE108109,and their diagnostic value was assessed by the receiver operating characteristics(ROC)curve analysis.Results M2 macrophages were significantly different between the MN patients and normal controls.Six M2 macrophages-related key genes were identified including PPARGC1A,ESRRG,KCNJ16,HLF,HGD,and SULT1C2.The ROC curve analysis showed that values of the area under the ROC curve of the key 6 genes were greater than 0.85.Conclusions This study identified six key genes related to M2 macrophages in MN,and further research is needed to verify their roles in MN.