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Identification of common core ion channel genes in epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease

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Abstract

Background

Although available literature indicates that the incidence of dementia in the epilepsy population and the risk of seizures in the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) population are high, the specific genetic risk factors and the interaction mechanism are unclear, rendering rational genetic interpretation rather challenging.

Aims

Our work aims to identify the common core ion channel genes in epilepsy and AD.

Methods

In this study, we first integrated gene expression omnibus datasets (GSE48350 and GSE6834) on AD and epilepsy to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs), performing Gene Ontology function and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis of DEGs. The related protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed for DEGs, and the hub gene was evaluated.

Results

A total of 2800 and 35 genes were identified in GSE48350 and GSE6834, and 12 DEGs were significantly differentially expressed between the datasets. KEGG pathway analysis showed that DEGs were primarily enriched in glutamatergic synapse and dopaminergic synapse pathways. SCN2A, GRIA1, and KCNJ9 were the hub genes with high connectivity.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that the three genes, SCN2A, GRIA1, and KCNJ9, may serve as potential targets for treating AD comorbid with epilepsy.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article and its online suppl—material files. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was funded by the Nursery Fund Project of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University (No. 2021MP24) and grants from the Natural Science Foundation (Key Project) of Fujian Province, China (No. 2020J02022), Fujian Provincial Finance Special project (No. 2021XH009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, 34 Zhongshan North Road, Quanzhou, Fujian, 362000, People’s Republic of China

    Ting Tang

  2. Department of Neurology, Center for Cognitive Neurology, Fujian Institute of Geriatrics, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, 29 Xinquan Road, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350001, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaodong Pan

  3. Department of Neurology, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, 29 Xinquan Road, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350001, People’s Republic of China

    Xiang Li, Erhan Yu & Man Li

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  1. Ting Tang
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  2. Xiang Li
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  4. Man Li
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Contributions

Ting Tang: contributed to conceptualization, software, data curation, and writing—original draft. Xiaodong Pan: concept, planning of study design, and writing. Xiang Li, Man Li, and Yu Erhan reviewed and discussed the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiaodong Pan.

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Tang, T., Li, X., Yu, E. et al. Identification of common core ion channel genes in epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. Ir J Med Sci 193, 417–424 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-023-03447-x

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