New insights into potential biomarkers and their roles in biological processes associated with hepatitis C-related liver cirrhosis by hepatic RNA-seq-based transcriptome profiling

• DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2024.199457
• Publication Date: 2024-09-10T21:32:15Z
• Authors: Hossein Nasr Azadani; Mohssen Nassiri T...; Shohreh Shahmahmoodi; Ahmad Nejati; Hamzeh Rahimi; Mohammad Farahmand; Abolfazl Keshavarz; Fatemeh Ghorbani ...; Katayoun Samimi-Rad
• Keywords: KEGG; Pathogenesis; RNA-Seq; Liver disease; Hepatitis C; Chronic liver disease; Fold change

Chronic hepatitis C virus infection is a major cause of mortality due to liver cirrhosis globally. Despite the advances in recent therapeutic strategies, there yet high burden HCV-related worldwide concerning low coverage newly developed antiviral therapies, insufficient validity current diagnostic methods for cirrhosis, and incomplete understanding pathogenesis this stage disease. Hence we aimed clarify molecular events identify liver-specific gene signature potentially improve diagnosis prognosis Through RNA-seq transcriptome profiling samples Iranian patients with differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified subjected functional annotation including biological process (BP) function (MF) analysis also KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. Furthermore, validation data was investigated seven candidate using qRT-PCR. Moreover, prognostic power validated DEGs analyzed both forms individual DEG combined biomarkers through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) Finally, explored pair-wise correlation these six new approach. We 838 significant (padj ˂0.05) enriching 375 15 terms BP MF, respectively (false discovery rate ˂ 0.01) 46 pathways (p-value 0.05). Most processes related inflammation, immune responses, cellular participating somewhat Interestingly, some neurological-associated involved HCV cirrhosis-related neuropsychiatric disorders. Out genes, DEGs, inflammation-related ISLR, LTB, ZAP70, KLRB1, neuronal-related MOXD1 Slitrk3 significantly confirmed by There close agreement expression change results between qRT-PCR our except SAA2-SAA4 (P= 0.8). High reproducibility novel as observed. found several correlations DEGs. Our findings indicate that MOXD1, could stand promising diagnosing cirrhosis. However, further studies are recommended validate potential evaluate their capability targets prevention treatment