Identification of Potential Key Genes Involved in the Carotid Atherosclerosis

Youshi Meng,1,2,* Chunli Zhang,1,2,* Lucong Liang,1,2,* Lei Wei,1,2 Hao Wang,1,2 Fengkun Zhou,1,2 Rongjie Li,1,2 Donghua Zou,1,2 Xiaohua Huang,3 Jie Liu4 1Department of Neurology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, 530022, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Neurology, The First People’s Hospital of Nanning, Nanning, Guangxi, 530022, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, Guangxi, 533000, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Cardiology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, 530022, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xiaohua HuangDepartment of Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, Guangxi, 533000, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail newxiaohua66@163.comJie LiuDepartment of Cardiology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, 530022, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +867712636189Email gxnnliujie@163.comPurpose: 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