Open Access

ARTICLE

Profiles of immune status and related pathways in sepsis: evidence based on GEO and bioinformatics

HANYU SHEN¹, SHIQI REN², WEI WANG², CHENLIN ZHANG³, HAIYAN HAO⁴, QIUYAN SHEN⁵, YINONG DUAN¹, ZIHENG WANG^2,6,*, WENLIANG GE^7,*

1 Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong, 226001, China
2 Department of Clinical Biobank, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, 226000, China
3 Department of Orthopedics, Qidong Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Nantong, 226200, China
4 Department of Outpatient, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, 226200, China
5 Department of Neurosurgery, Wuxi Clinical College of Anhui Medical University, 904th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of PLA, Wuxi, 214000, China
6 Department of Neurosurgery, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, 226200, China
7 Department of Pediatric Surgery, Nantong University Affiliated Hospital, Nantong, 226200, China

* Address correspondence to: Wenliang Ge, Email: ; Ziheng Wang, Email:

BIOCELL 2020, 44(4), 583-589. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2020.011345

Received 02 May 2020; Accepted 23 June 2020; Issue published 24 December 2020

Abstract

Sepsis, characterized as life-threatening sequential organ failure, is caused by a dysregulated host immune response to a pathogen. Conventional practice for sepsis is to control the inflammation source and administer highgrade antibiotics. However, the mortality rate of sepsis varies from 25–30% and can reach 50% if a septic shock occurs. In our current study, we used bioinformatics technology to detect immune status profiles in sepsis at the genomic level. We downloaded and analyzed gene expression profiles of GSE28750 from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to determine differential gene expression and immune status between sepsis and normal samples. Next, we used the CIBERSORT method to quantify the proportions of immune cells in the sepsis samples. Then we explored the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) related to sepsis. Furthermore, gene ontology (GO) function and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis were used to present potential signaling pathways in sepsis. We found that in the sepsis samples, the CD8⁺ T cell fraction was consistently lower, based on the CIBERSORT method, whereas the neutrophil fraction was significantly higher in the sepsis samples. The GO function and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis identified 1573 DEGs that were significantly associated with neutrophil activation, neutrophil degranulation, neutrophil activation involved in the immune response, neutrophil-mediated immunity, and T cell activation in the biological processes group. In our study, we provided a first glance of associations between immune status and sepsis. Furthermore, our data regarding the reciprocal interaction between immune cells (neutrophils and CD8⁺ T cells) could improve our understanding of immune status profiles in sepsis. However, additional investigations should be performed to verify their clinical value.

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