Identification of m6A methylation-related genes in cerebral ischemia-reperfusion of Breviscapus therapy based on bioinformatics method
Abstract Background: Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) frequently caused the late-onset neuronal damage. Breviscapine has a promote in autophagy of microvascular endothelial cells in I/R and it can inhibit the oxidative damage and apoptosis. However, the mediation mechanism of breviscapine on neuronal cell death is unclear. Methods: Firstly, transcriptome sequencing was performed on three groups of mice neuronal normal group (Control group), oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation group (OGD/R group) and breviscapine administration group (Therapy group). Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between OGD/R and Control groups, and between Therapy and OGD/R groups were obtained by limma package. The N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation related DEGs were selected out by the Pearson correlation analysis. Then, prediction and confirmation of drug targets were performed by Swiss Target Prediction and UniProt Knowledgebase (UniProtKB) datebase, and key genes were obtained by Pearson correlation analysis between m6A-related DEGs and drug target genes. Next, gene set enrichment (GSEA) analysis and Ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) were used to obtain the pathways of key genes. Finally, a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network was constructed based on the mRNAs, circRNAs and miRNAs. Results: 2250 DEGs between OGD/R and Control groups and 757 DEGs between Therapy and OGD/R groups were selected out by differential analysis. A total of 7 m6A related DEGs including Arl4d, Gm10653, Gm1113, Kcns3, Olfml2a, Stk26 and Tfcp2l1 were obtained by Pearson correlation analysis. Four key genes (Tfcp2l1, Kcns3, Olfml2a and Arl4d) were acquired, and GSEA showed that these key genes were significantly participated in DNA repair, e2f targets and g2m checkpoint. IPA revealed that Tfcp2l1 played a significant role in human embryonic stem cell pluripotency. The circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network showed that the mmu_circ_0001258 regulated the Tfcp2l1 by mmu-miR-301b-3p. Conclusions: In conclusion, four key genes including Tfcp2l1, Kcns3, Olfml2a and Arl4d significantly associated with the treatment of OGD/R by breviscapine were acquired, which would provide a theoretical basis for clinical trials.