Monocyte subsets, T cell activation profiles, and stroke in men and women: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Cardiovascular Health Study

Immune Cell Infiltration Analysis Based on Bioinformatics Reveals Novel Biomarkers of Coronary Artery Disease

Background

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a multifactorial immune disease, but research into the specific immune mechanism is still needed. The present study aimed to identify novel immune-related markers of CAD.

Methods

Three CAD-related datasets (GSE12288, GSE98583, GSE113079) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Integrated Database. Gene ontology annotation, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis and weighted gene co-expression network analysis were performed on the common significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of these three data sets, and the most relevant module genes for CAD obtained. The immune cell infiltration of module genes was evaluated with the CIBERSORT algorithm, and characteristic genes accompanied by their diagnostic effectiveness were screened by the machine-learning algorithm least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis. The expression levels of characteristic genes were evaluated in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of CAD patients and healthy controls for verification.

Results

A total of 204 upregulated and 339 downregulated DEGs were identified, which were mainly enriched in the following pathways: "Apoptosis", "Th17 cell differentiation", "Th1 and Th2 cell differentiation", "Glycerolipid metabolism", and "Fat digestion and absorption". Five characteristic genes, LMAN1L, DOK4, CHFR, CEL and CCDC28A, were identified by LASSO analysis, and the results of the immune cell infiltration analysis indicated that the proportion of immune infiltrating cells (activated CD8 T cells and CD56 DIM natural killer cells) in the CAD group was lower than that in the control group. The expressions of CHFR, CEL and CCDC28A in the peripheral blood of the healthy controls and CAD patients were significantly different.

Conclusion

We identified CHFR, CEL and CCDC28A as potential biomarkers related to immune infiltration in CAD based on public data sets and clinical samples. This finding will contribute to providing a potential target for early noninvasive diagnosis and immunotherapy of CAD.

Integrated Microarray Analysis to Identify Genes and Small-Molecule Drugs Associated with Stroke Progression

Several blood biomarkers are now considered increasingly important for stratifying risk, monitoring disease progression, and evaluating the response to therapy in ischemic stroke. The purpose of the present study was to identify the key genes associated with ischemic stroke progression and elucidate the potential therapeutic small molecules. Microarray datasets related to stroke for GSE58294, GSE22255, and GSE16561 were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were filtered using the Limma package. DAVID was then searched to perform gene ontology (GO) and pathway enrichment analyses. Based on the DEGs, a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was developed using Cytoscape, and MCODE was applied to conduct module analysis. Finally, to identify the potential drugs for ischemic stroke, the connectivity map (CMap) database was used. Sixty DEGs were identified after analyzing the three datasets. The GO data analysis revealed that the DEGs were significantly associated with biological processes, including positive regulation of programmed cell death, protein localization in organelles, and positive regulation of apoptosis. KEGG analysis showed that the DEGs were particularly enriched in the Fc epsilon RI signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, and Huntington’s disease. We selected five DEGs with high connectivity (CYBB, SYK, DUSP1, TNF, and SP1) that significantly predicted stroke progression. In addition, CMap prediction showed ten small molecules that could be used as adjuvants when treating ischemic stroke. The outcomes of the present study indicated that the five genes mentioned above can be considered potential targets for developing new medications that can modify the ischemic stroke process, and mycophenolic acid was the most promising small molecule to treat ischemic stroke.