Novel targets in renal fibrosis based on bioinformatic analysis I

Renal fibrosis is a widely used pathological indicator of progressive chronic kidney disease (CKD), and renal fibrosis mediates most progressive renal diseases as a final pathway. Nevertheless, the key genes related to the host response are still unclear. In this study, the potential gene network, signaling pathways, and key genes under UUO model in mouse kidneys were investigated by integrating two transcriptional data profiles. Overall design: The mice were exposed to UUO surgery in two dependent experiments. After seven days, two datasets were sequenced from mice kidney tissues, respectively, and the transcriptome data were analyzed to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Then, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis were executed. A Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) network was constructed based on an online database STRING. Additionally, hub genes were identified and shown, and their expression levels were investigated in dataset GSE36496 and confirmed by utilizing the quantitative real time-PCR (qRT-PCR) in vivo.