Identification of hub genes and small molecule therapeutic drugs related to simple steatosis with secondary analysis of existing microarray data

The quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay was performed to determine the mRNA expression level of hub genes (FOS, MYC, IL-1B, and EGR1). The SS cases and HC participants were recruited from the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. These patients were all pathologically diagnosed by liver biopsy. SS patients meeting the following criteria were excluded: (1) they drank more than 20 g/day, (2) they had hepatitis B or C, autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cholangitis, or hepatolenticular degeneration, (3) they long-term treated with non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs, calcium antagonists, tamoxifen, amiodarone, corticosterone, isoniazid, and methotrexate, (4) pregnant or lactating women, and (5) patients with liver cancer or other benign/malignant tumors. Finally, 30 patients with SS (mean age 46.83 ± 9.02) and 20 HC people (mean age 43.82 ± 8.34) were included in this analysis.