Table_3_Weighted Correlation Gene Network Analysis Reveals New Potential Mechanisms and Biomarkers in Non-obstructive Azoospermia.csv

Non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) denotes a severe form of male infertility, whose etiology is still poorly understood. This is mainly due to limited knowledge on the molecular mechanisms that lead to spermatogenesis failure. In this study, we acquired microarray data from GEO DataSets and identified differentially expressed genes using the limma package in R. We identified 1,261 differentially expressed genes between non-obstructive and obstructive azoospermia. Analysis of their possible biological functions and related signaling pathways using the cluster profiler package revealed an enrichment of genes involved in germ cell development, cilium organization, and oocyte meiosis. Immune infiltration analysis indicated that macrophages were the most significant immune component of NOA, cooperating with mast cells and natural killer cells. The weighted gene coexpression network analysis algorithm generated three related functional modules, which correlated closely with clinical parameters derived from histopathological subtypes of NOA. The resulting data enabled the construction of a protein–protein interaction network of these three modules, with CDK1, CDC20, CCNB1, CCNB2, and MAD2L1 identified as hub genes. This study provides the basis for further investigation of the molecular mechanism underlying NOA, as well as indications about potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets of NOA. Finally, using tissues containing different tissue types for differential expression analysis can reflect the expression differences in different tissues to a certain extent. But this difference in expression is only related and not causal. The specific causality needs to be verified later.

非阻塞性无精子症（NOA）是指一种严重的男性不育症，其病因尚不明确。这主要归因于我们对导致生精失败分子机制的了解有限。在本研究中，我们收集了来自GEO数据集的微阵列数据，并使用R语言中的limma软件包鉴定了差异表达基因。我们鉴定出在非阻塞性和无精子症之间有1,261个差异表达基因。利用cluster profiler软件包分析其可能的生物学功能和相关信号通路，揭示了参与生殖细胞发育、纤毛组织和卵母细胞减数分裂的基因富集。免疫浸润分析表明，巨噬细胞是NOA中最显著的免疫成分，并与肥大细胞和自然杀伤细胞协同作用。加权基因共表达网络分析算法生成了三个相关功能模块，这些模块与NOA组织病理学亚型的临床参数密切相关。据此，构建了这三个模块的蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用网络，其中CDK1、CDC20、CCNB1、CCNB2和MAD2L1被鉴定为核心基因。本研究为深入探究NOA的分子机制提供了基础，同时也为NOA的潜在生物标志物和治疗靶点提供了线索。最后，使用包含不同组织类型的组织进行差异表达分析，在一定程度上可以反映不同组织中的表达差异。但此表达差异仅为相关性，而非因果关系。具体的因果关系需在后续进行验证。