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Integrative Analysis of Core Genes and Biological Process Involved in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

  • Reproductive Endocrinology: Original Article
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Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common gynecological endocrine disordered disease, affecting the function of the ovaries in women of reproductive age. However, there are limited curative therapies for PCOS due to lack of reliable candidates. Hence, this study aimed to identify hub pathogenic genes and potential therapeutic targets for PCOS using bioinformatics tools. We obtained the expression profiles of 29 PCOS samples and 24 normal samples from three Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. Then, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened, which were subjected to functional enrichment analyses. Moreover, we found 30 ferroptosis-related genes out of the 89 DEGs. Among the top 10 significant ferroptosis-related DEGs, 8 genes showed good predictive performance. We constructed interaction network of top three ferroptosis-related DEGs (SLC38A1, ACO1, DDIT3). Finally, real-time PCR was performed to test the relative expression of these genes. In conclusions, we have identified ferroptosis-related DEGs as core genes and potential therapeutic targets of PCOS based on comprehensive bioinformatics analysis. The findings are conducive to understanding of the pathogenesis of PCOS and paving the way towards curative therapies.

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Availability of Data and Material

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo, Accession number GSE6798, GSE5850, and GSE10946).

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Funding

This work was supported by the Shaanxi Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Grant No. 2021-ZZ-LC023), the Education Department of Shaanxi Provincial Government (Grant No. 21JK0974), the Yan'an University Affiliated Hospital of Project (Grant No. 2018ZD-02), and Yan’an Science and Technology Bureau (Grant No. 2022SLSFGG-047).

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Author notes

  1. Yuanyuan Zhang and Tianyi Zhao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Yan’an University Affiliated Hospital, No. 43 North Street, Baota District, Yan’an, 716000, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanyuan Zhang, Lishuang Hu & Juan Xue

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Qilu Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, 250012, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Tianyi Zhao

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  1. Yuanyuan Zhang
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Correspondence to Juan Xue.

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Ethics Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Medical University of Affiliated Hospital of Yan’an University (No. YAS-N01-202103009).

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Supplementary Information

ESM 1

Table S1. Primer sets for SLC38A1, ATG13, and GAPDH in RT-PCR

ESM 2

Table S2. GSEA analysis on the gene expression data of the GSE6798 dataset

ESM 3

Table S3. Go enrichment analysis of DEGs in PCOS

ESM 4

Table S4. The interactions between SLC38A1, ACO1, DDIT3 and drug molecules.

ESM 5

Figure S1 The results of agarose gel electrophoresis.

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Zhang, Y., Zhao, T., Hu, L. et al. Integrative Analysis of Core Genes and Biological Process Involved in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Reprod. Sci. 30, 3055–3070 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-023-01259-z

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