Transcriptomics Evidence for Common Pathways in Human Major Depressive Disorder and Glioblastoma

Abstract

Depression as a common complication of brain tumors. Is there a possible common pathogenesis for depression and glioma? The most serious major depressive disorder (MDD) and glioblastoma (GBM) in both diseases are studied, to explore the common pathogenesis between the two diseases. In this article, we first rely on transcriptome data to obtain reliable and useful differentially expressed genes (DEGs) by differential expression analysis. Then, we used the transcriptomics of DEGs to find out and analyze the common pathway of MDD and GBM from three directions. Finally, we determine the important biological pathways that are common to MDD and GBM by statistical knowledge. Our findings provide the first direct transcriptomic evidence that common pathway in two diseases for the common pathogenesis of the human MDD and GBM. Our results provide a new reference methods and values for the study of the pathogenesis of depression and glioblastoma.

Keywords: common pathway; differentially expressed genes; glioblastoma; major depressive disorder; transcriptomics.

Figure 1

The flowchart of the research program. Cylinder: the database; Rectangle: method or software; Parallelogram: data or result; Ellipse indicates the finally result.

Figure 2

Differentially Expressed Genes Enrichment Venn Diagram and Its 3D Area Map. Figure (A–D) indicate similarities and differences in the functional enrichment results of two diseases. They are GO_BP, GO_CC, GO_MF, KEGG. In Figure (E), the Yellow: GBM enrichment results; blue: MDD functional enrichment results; green: MDD and GBM common enrichment results. MDD: Major Depressive Disorder; GBM: glioblastoma; BP: Biology Process; CC: Cellular Component; MF: Molecular Function.

Figure 3

The protein-protein interaction network of MDD and GBM. (A) The protein—protein interaction (PPI) of MDD. (B) The PPI of GBM. Nodes of the same color represent proteins that are aggregated into the same class; large nodes indicate that the three-dimensional structure of the protein is known and that the small nodes are unknown; the line represents the interaction between proteins; there are seven kinds of relationship. Red, fusion gene; Green, adjacent interaction; Blue, coexistence relationship; Purple, experimental study of validation interactions; Yellow, literature digging to the interaction; and, Light blue, the database included interaction; Black, shared expression. MDD, Major Depressive Disorder. GBM, glioblastoma.

Figure 4

PPI of the core gene module. (A) The PPI of the most significant core module about MDD. (B) The PPI of the secondary core gene module about GBM. Node: protein; connection: the interaction between proteins. MDD, Major Depressive Disorder. GBM, glioblastoma.

Figure 5

The predicted miRNA Venn Diagram. GBM_miRNA: the miRNAs predicted by GBM-related DEGs; MDD_miRNA: the miRNAs predicted by MDD-related DEGs; com_DEGs_miRNA: the miRNAs predicted by common 27 DEGs; com_miRNA: common miRNA between GBM_miRNA and MDD_miRNA.