Journal of Inflammation Research (Apr 2023)

Identification of Ferroptosis-Related Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Molecular Classification of Staphylococcus aureus-Induced Osteomyelitis

  • Shi X,
  • Tang L,
  • Ni H,
  • Li M,
  • Wu Y,
  • Xu Y

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 16
pp. 1805 – 1823

Abstract

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Xiangwen Shi,1,2,* Linmeng Tang,3,* Haonan Ni,1,* Mingjun Li,1 Yipeng Wu,1,2 Yongqing Xu2 1Kunming Medical University, Kunming, People’s Republic of China; 2Laboratory of Yunnan Traumatology and Orthopedics Clinical Medical Center, Yunnan Orthopedics and Sports Rehabilitation Clinical Medical Research Center, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, 920th Hospital of Joint Logistics Support Force of PLA, Kunming, People’s Republic of China; 3Bone and Joint Imaging Center, Department of Medical Imaging, the First Affiliated Hospital of Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yongqing Xu; Yipeng Wu, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, 920th Hospital of Joint Logistics Support Force, 212 Daguan Road, Xi Shan District, Kunming, Yunnan, 650100, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Staphylococcus aureus (SA)-induced osteomyelitis (OM) is one of the most common refractory diseases in orthopedics. Early diagnosis is beneficial to improve the prognosis of patients. Ferroptosis plays a key role in inflammation and immune response, while the mechanism of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) in SA-induced OM is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine the role of ferroptosis-related genes in the diagnosis, molecular classification and immune infiltration of SA-induced OM by bioinformatics.Methods: Datasets related to SA-induced OM and ferroptosis were collected from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and ferroptosis databases, respectively. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) algorithms were combined to screen out differentially expressed-FRGs (DE-FRGs) with diagnostic characteristics, and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and gene set variation analysis (GSVA) were used to explore specific biological functions and pathways. Based on these key DE-FRGs, a diagnostic model was established, and molecular subtypes were divided to explore the changes in the immune microenvironment between molecular subtypes.Results: A total of 41 DE-FRGs were identified. After screening and intersecting with LASSO and SVM-RFE algorithms, 8 key DE-FRGs with diagnostic characteristics were obtained, which may regulate the pathogenesis of OM through the immune response and amino acid metabolism. The ROC curve indicated that the 8 DE-FRGs had excellent diagnostic ability for SA-induced OM (AUC=0.993). Two different molecular subtypes (subtype 1 and subtype 2) were identified by unsupervised cluster analysis. The CIBERSORT analysis revealed that the subtype 1 OM had higher immune cell infiltration rates, mainly in T cells CD4 memory resting, macrophages M0, macrophages M2, dendritic cells resting, and dendritic cells activated.Conclusion: We developed a diagnostic model related to ferroptosis and molecular subtypes significantly related to immune infiltration, which may provide a novel insight for exploring the pathogenesis and immunotherapy of SA-induced OM.Keywords: osteomyelitis, ferroptosis, molecular subtype, immune infiltration, biomarker

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