Differential gene expression profile of multinodular goiter

Abstract

Introduction: The goiter, a neglected heterogeneous molecular disease, remains a major indication for thyroidectomies in its endemic regions.

Objectives: This study analyzed differential gene expression in surgical specimens diagnosed with multi nodular and compared the data to that of thyroid tissue without multinodular goiter from patients undergoing thyroidectomy in Manaus-AM, Brazil using RNA-seq technology.

Methodology: The transcriptome information of the surgical specimen fragments with and without multinodular goiter was accessed by Illumina HiSeq 2000 New Generation Sequencing (NGS) using the RNA-seq NEBNext® Ultra™ RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina®-#E7530L protocol and differential gene expression analysis.

Results: Differences were found between the gene expression profiles of the diseased tissues and those of the healthy control tissues; at least 70 genes were differentially expressed. The HOTS gene was expressed only in multinodular goiter tissues (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: These results demonstrate that the gene expression profile of multinodular goiter is pro-tumoral and that HOTS can play a central role in multinodular goiter development.

Fig 1. Heat map graph comparing the fold values of the 70 differentially expressed sequences in each sample.

Values above the normalized reference value (Z score) are shown in green, the reference value is shown in red, and values close to the reference are represented by a dark tone. Each column represents a sample, and each row represents a sequence. N6, control tissue; B13 and B14, goiter tissues.

Fig 2. Protein-protein interaction analysis of 63 differentially expressed functional genes using the GeneMANIA software.

A total of 423 gene interactions (more than 50% co-expression) of the five genes (TNF-RSF19, AC2413771 (HOTS gene), RP11-514P8.6, C1QL4, and SPHKAP) had no interactions identified with the others.