Abstract:

Background: Sarcopenia is a clinical syndrome characterized by continuous loss of skeletal muscle mass, muscle strength or function. Sarcopenia, which increases the risk of falls and fractures, is also closely associated with metabolic diseases and cognitive dysfunction, resulting in serious adverse effects on people’s quality of life and inflicting a heavy socio-economic burden. In the present study, we aim to identify potential crucial genes associated with sarcopenia through bioinformatic analyses of public datasets.

Methods: The gene expression profiles (GSE1428) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The difference expression genes (DEGs) between sarcopenia samples and normal samples were screened. The Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses of the DEGs were performed. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the STRING database. Cytoscape with CytoHubba were used to identify the hub genes.

Results: Totally, 314 up-regulated genes and 289 own-regulated genes were identified. In addition, the most significantly enriched pathway was Cell cycle, Human T-cell leukemia virus 1 infection, Natural killer cell mediated cytotoxicity, T cell receptor signaling pathway, Signaling pathways regulating pluripotency of stem cells. In combination with the results of the protein–protein interaction (PPI) network and CytoHubba, 10 hub genes including CD4、PLK1、CHEK2、LCP2、NANOG、PTPN11、RUNX2、ANXA5、BUB1B、CCR5 were selected.

Conclusions: The 10 potential crucial genes may be associated with risk of sarcopenia. Our study provided new insights of sarcopenia into genetics, molecular pathogenesis and new therapeutic targets. It also will contribute to identification of potential biomarkers and novel strategies for sarcopenia.

Journal Link: Research Square Other Link: Download PDF Other Link: Google Scholar