Bioinformatics analysis of key genes and latent pathway interactionsbased on the anaplastic thyroid carcinoma gene expression profile

摘要

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is an aggressive malignant disease in older adults with a high mortality rate. The present study aimed to examine several key genes and pathways, which are associated with ATC. The gene expression profile was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, which included 11 ATC and 45 normal thyroid samples. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in ATC were identified using the Limma package in R. The Gene Ontology functions and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways of the selected DEGs were enriched using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the DEGs was constructed to select significant modules. Furthermore, a latent pathway interactive network was constructed to select the significant pathways associated with ATC. A total of 665 DEGs in the ATC samples were screened, and four significant modules were selected from the PPI network. The DEGs in the four modules were enriched in several functions and pathways. In addition, 29 significant pathways associated with ATC were selected, and he Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathway, extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction and cytokine-cytokine interaction pathway were identified as important pathways. FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog (FOS),chemokine C-X-C motif ligand 10 (CXCL10), collagen type V α1 (COL5A1) andchemokine (C-C motif) ligand 28 (CCL28) were the key DEGs involved in thesesignificant pathways. The data obtained in the present study revealed that the TLRsignaling pathway, ECM-receptor interaction and cytokine-cytokine receptorinteraction pathway, and the FOS, CXCL10, COL5A1, COL11A1 and CCL28 genes havedifferent roles in the progression of ATC, and these may be used as therapeutictargets for ATC.