Title:Identification and Validation of Synapse-related Hub Genes after Spinal
Cord Injury by Bioinformatics Analysis
Volume: 27
Issue: 4
Author(s): Mengting Shi, Haipeng Xu, Rong Hu, Yi Chen, Xingying Wu, Bowen Chen and Ruijie Ma*
Affiliation:
- Key Laboratory of Acupuncture and Neurology of Zhejiang Province, The Third School of Clinical Medicine (School of
Rehabilitation Medicine), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- Department of Acupuncture
and Moxibustion, Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Keywords:
Spinal cord injury, WGCNA, synapse, hub genes, morbidity, mortality.
Abstract:
Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a neurological disease with high morbidity and
mortality. Previous studies have shown that abnormally expressed synapse-related genes are closely
related to the occurrence and development of SCI. However, little is known about the interaction
of these aberrantly expressed genes and the molecular mechanisms that play a role in the injury response.
Therefore, deeply exploring the correlation between synapse-related genes and functional
recovery after spinal cord injury and the molecular regulation mechanism is of great significance.
Methods: First, we selected the function GSE45006 dataset to construct three clinically meaningful
gene modules by hierarchical clustering analysis in 4 normal samples and 20 SCI samples. Subsequently,
we performed functional and pathway enrichment analyses of key modules.
Results: The results showed that related module genes were significantly enriched in synaptic
structures and functions, such as the regulation of synaptic membranes and membrane potential. A
protein-protein interaction network (PPI) was constructed to identify 10 hub genes of SCI, and the
results showed that Snap25, Cplx1, Stxbp1, Syt1, Rims1, Rab3a, Syn2, Syn1, Cask, Lin7b were
most associated with SCI. Finally, these hub genes were further verified by quantitative real-time
fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in the spinal cord tissues of the blank group
and SCI rats, and it was found that the expression of these hub genes was significantly decreased in
the spinal cord injury compared with the blank group (P ≤ 0.05).
Conclusion: These results suggest that the structure and function of synapses play an important
role after spinal cord injury. Our study helps to understand the underlying pathogenesis of SCI
patients further and identify new targets for SCI treatment.