Analysis of gene expression difference and biological process in chorionic villi of unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion

Abstract

Abstract Objective To explore the biological relationship between the regulatory signal pathways involved in differentially expressed genes and recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) by analyzing the gene expression microarray data of unexplained RSA. Methods The gene expression profile data of chorionic villi from unexplained recurrent abortion with normal karyotype and selective induced abortion were compared. Differentially expressed genes were analyzed by the “Limma” package in R Studio, and Gene Ontology(GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis were carried out with “Cluster Profiler” and “org.hs.eg.db” packages. Finally, hub genes were identified through constructing the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network from the differentially expressed gene dataset in the STRING database. And the hub genes were verified by RT-PCR. The expression of TH1 and TH2 cytokines representing IL-2, IL-10 and their receptors related to hub gene immune regulation were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and western blot (WB), respectively. Results A total of 295 differentially expressed genes were identified in the dataset GSE22490, with a significance level of P 1.0, which included 166 up-regulated genes and 129 down-regulated genes. Go and KEGG enrichment analysis of these differentially expressed genes (P 0.05). There was no significant difference in the expression levels of IL-10 and its receptor between the two groups (P > 0.05). Conclusion Abnormal immune response plays an important role in unexplained RSA. The imbalance in immune regulation may be one of the most important reasons behind this phenomenon. These findings provide a foundation for further research into the mechanisms underlying RSA.

Keywords

• Recurrent spontaneous abortion
• Chorionic villi
• Differentially expressed genes
• Bioinformatics