Novel computational analysis of large transcriptome datasets identifies sets of genes distinguishing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from healthy lung samples

F.K. Roessler, B.J. Benedikter, B. Schmeck, N. Bar*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) kills over three million people worldwide every year. Despite its high global impact, the knowledge about the underlying molecular mechanisms is still limited. In this study, we aimed to extend the available knowledge by identifying a small set of COPD-associated genes. We analysed different publicly available gene expression datasets containing whole lung tissue (WLT) and airway epithelium (AE) samples from over 400 human subjects for differentially expressed genes (DEGs). We reduced the resulting sets of 436 and 663 DEGs using a novel computational approach that utilises a random depth-first search to identify genes which improve the distinction between COPD patients and controls along the first principle component of the data. Our method identified small sets of 10 and 15 genes in the WLT and AE, respectively. These sets of genes significantly (p<10(-20)) distinguish COPD patients from controls with high fidelity. The final sets revealed novel genes like cysteine rich protein 1 (CRIP1) or secretoglobin family 3A member 2 (SCGB3A2) that may underlie fundamental molecular mechanisms of COPD in these tissues.
Original languageEnglish
Article number10258
Number of pages13
JournalScientific Reports
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13 May 2021

Keywords

  • SURFACTANT PROTEIN-B
  • INDUCED INFLAMMATION
  • AIRWAY EPITHELIUM
  • GLOBAL BURDEN
  • EXPRESSION
  • COPD
  • PATHOGENESIS
  • ASSOCIATION
  • ACTIVATION
  • DISABILITY

Cite this