Identification and Validation of Immune-Related Genes Diagnostic for Progression of Atherosclerosis and Diabetes

作者：Yajuan Fu, Lingbo Xu, Hui Zhang, Ning Ding, Juan Zhang, Shengchao Ma, Anning Yang, Yinjv Hao, Yujing Gao, Yideng Jiang · 发表于：Journal of Inflammation Research · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.2147/jir.s393788 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Atherosclerosis and Cardiovascular Diseases、Adipokines, Inflammation, and Metabolic Diseases、Ferroptosis and cancer prognosis

Background: Atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes mellitus contribute to a large part of cardiovascular events, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we focused on identifying the linking genes of the diagnostic biomarkers and effective therapeutic targets associated with these two diseases. Methods: The transcriptomic datasets of atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes mellitus were obtained from the GEO database. Differentially expressed genes analysis was performed by R studio software, and differential analysis including functional enrichment, therapeutic small molecular agents prediction, and protein-protein interaction analysis were applied to the common shared differentially expressed genes. Hub genes were identified and further validated using an independent dataset and clinical samples. Furthermore, we measured the expression correlations, immune cell infiltration, and diagnostic capability of the three key genes. Results: We screened out 28 up-regulated and six down-regulated common shared differentially expressed genes. Functional enrichment analysis showed that cytokines and immune activation were involved in the development of these two diseases. Six small molecules with the highest absolute enrichment value were identified. Three critical genes (CD4, PLEK, and THY1) were further validated both in validation sets and clinical samples. The gene correlation analysis showed that CD4 was strongly positively correlated with PLEK, and ROC curves confir...