Mining the potential therapeutic targets for coronary artery disease by bioinformatics analysis

Abstract

The present study aimed to mine therapeutic molecular targets that play an important part in the progression of coronary artery disease (CAD). The gene expression profile GSE28829 dataset and the microRNA (miRNA) expression profile GSE59421 dataset were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The GEO2R online analytical tool was used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and miRNAs (DEMs). The target genes of DEMs were identified using the miRWalk2.0 web-based tool and 2 miRNA-gene regulatory networks were constructed using Cytoscape software. Subsequently, enriched Gene Ontology (GO) terms of miRNA-target DEGs were obtained using the Database for Visualization, Annotation and Integrated Analysis, and locations of these genes in the chromosomes were determined by Map Viewer. In the present study, 350 DEGs and 66 DEMs were screened. A total of 3,588 target genes were identified from the DEMs, and 57 of these target genes and established DEGs were identified to overlap. GO terms associated with 5 processes, and 4 types of composition were identified to be enriched in the miRNA-target DEGs. Furthermore, 26 miRNA-gene regulatory pairs were obtained between the 57 target genes and DEMs. The 26 miRNA-target DEGs were unevenly distributed, and no genes were located on the sex chromosomes. As a result of the present study, potential therapeutic targets for CAD were identified through bioinformatics analysis.