coexpression-PCC.pdf

Abstract. – BACKGROUND: This study aimed to identify biological markers about osteoarthritis (OA) which is a polygenic disease by investigat- ing the gene expression profiles of the synovium samples from early-stage and end-stage OA pa- tients for the diagnosis and treatment of OA. METHODS: The gene expression profile of GSE32317 was downloaded from Gene Expres- sion Omnibus (GEO) database, including 10 samples from early-stage OA patients and 9 samples from end-stage OA patients. The differ- entially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by Significance Analysis of Microarrays. The co- expression network of DEGs was constructed by Pearson correlation test. Then, modules in the constructed co-expression network were select- ed by MCODE Plugin. What’s more, EASE (Ex- pression Analysis Systematic Explorer) was used to define the significant functions and pathways in the identified modules. RESULTS: Total 419 DEGs were identified, among which 112 were up-regulated and 307 down-regulated. We selected 7 statistically sig- nificant modules with gene number above 10 and phenotypic correlation test of modules showed that all the modules had significant cor- relation with OA (p 0.05). The genes of module 1, module 2 and module 7 were significantly re- lated to immune system functions, protein glyco- sylation functions, bone, chondrocytes and car- tilage functions, respectively. The most signifi- cant pathway in module 3 and module 5 wasWnt signal pathway, and in module 4 was Toll-like re- ceptor signal pathway. CONCLUSIONS: DEGs related to immune re- sponse, cartilage development, protein glycosy- lation, muscle development, and DEGs partici- pated in the Wnt signaling pathway and Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathway might be the potential target genes for the OA treatment. Key Words: Osteoarthritis, Gene therapy, Differentially ex- pressed genes. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences Genes relevant with osteoarthritis by comparison gene expression