Whole blood transcriptome analysis of Septic shock and Cardiogenic shock patients over one week of ICU stay

Circulatory shock affects approximately one-third of all patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and it is correlated with high mortality. Septic shock (SS) and cardiogenic shock (CS) are two types of circulatory shock, with a different etiology. We aimed to assess in whole blood of CS and SS patients the transcriptomic alterations occurring over one week after ICU admission in order to identify the pathways that are modulated in circulatory shock irrespective of the etiology. We used Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) to identify the biological processes and transcriptional regulators significantly enriched in both types of shock. We analyzed 21 septic shock and 11 cardiogenic shock patients. For each patient, 3 samples were collected at three timepoints: T1, within 16 hours of ICU admission, T2, 48 hours after study enrollment and T3 on day 7 from ICU admission or before discharge from the ICU.