New insight in understanding and exploring optimal biomarkers in stroke: Key diagnostic markers for clinical treatment

Abstract

Background A stroke is a complex neurological phenomenon where patients may suddenly experience paralysis, loss of vision or impaired speech because of interruption of blood flow. Stroke is the second leading cause of death and a significant reason for long-term disability worldwide. Optimal biomarkers latent in stroke remain relatively unknown, and efforts are ongoing to effectively define the molecular fingerprints of a stroke. In this study, we utilized microarray gene expression data for the in silico discovery of novel key diagnostic markers which can be utilized for clinical treatment of ischemic stroke.Methods and results We performed differential expression analysis and obtained 20 genes which have at least a two-fold change in the expression level. We also performed gene-disease association studies, functional categories enrichment and GO term enrichment analysis, tissue expression analysis, protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, interaction study of miRNAs that target identified biomarkers. The identified diagnostic markers were validated with the PubMed literature using publication enrichment analysis.Conclusions It was observed that most of the identified genes, including AKAP7, ARG1, S100A2, MMP9, TIMP, and CCR7 are markers for early or post-ischemic stroke.