STAT3 and SPI1, may lead to the immune system dysregulation and heterotopic ossification in ankylosing spondylitis

• Published in: BMC immunology Vol. 23; no. 1; p. 3
• Main Authors: Liang, Tuo, Chen, Jiarui, Xu, GuoYong, Zhang, Zide, Xue, Jiang, Zeng, Haopeng, Jiang, Jie, Chen, Tianyou, Qin, Zhaojie, Li, Hao, Ye, Zhen, Nie, Yunfeng, Zhan, Xinli, Liu, Chong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 22.01.2022; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Analysis; Ankylosing spondylitis; Arthritis; Back surgery; Bioinformatics; Biomarkers; Care and treatment; Correlation analysis; Cytokines; Diagnosis; Disease; Flow cytometry; Gene expression; Gene set enrichment analysis; Health aspects; Histocompatibility antigen HLA; HLA-B27 Antigen - analysis; HLA-B27 Antigen - metabolism; Humans; Immune System; Inflammation; Kinases; Lymphocytes T; Microenvironments; Natural killer cells; NKT cells; Ossification; Ossification (ectopic); Ossification, Heterotopic; Pathogenesis; Phenotypes; Physiological aspects; Proto-Oncogene Proteins; Risk factors; SPI1; Spondylitis, Ankylosing; STAT3; Stat3 protein; STAT3 Transcription Factor; T cells; Th1 cells; Trans-Activators; Transcription; China; Biomarkers; NKT cells; SPI1; Th1 cells; Ankylosing spondylitis; STAT3
• ISSN: 1471-2172; 1471-2172
• DOI: 10.1186/s12865-022-00476-6

This study was aimed to identify the biomarkers for diagnosis and reveal the immune microenvironment changes in ankylosing spondylitis (AS). GSE73754 was downloaded for the co-expression network construction and immune cell analyses. Flow cytometric analysis was performed to validate the results of bioinformatics analysis. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to investigate the potential biological characteristic between different phenotypes. Pearson correlation analysis between the hub genes and the xCell score of immune cell types was performed. Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and Spi-1 proto-oncogene (SPI1) was identified as the hub genes in the datasets GSE73754. And the t-test showed that the expression level of STAT3 and SPI1 in the GSE73754 was significantly higher in AS and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B27(+) groups. Flow cytometric analysis showed that natural killer T cells (NKT) cells were upregulated, while Th1 cells were down-regulated in AS, which was consistent with the results obtained from bioinformatics analysis. STAT3 and SPI1 was correlated with the NKT cells and Th1 cells. STAT3 and SPI1 may be a key cytokine receptor in disease progression in AS.