Identification of Key Genes and Regulatory Pathways in Multiple Sclerosis Brain Samples: A Meta-Analysis of Micro-Array Datasets

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) whose aetiology is only partly understood. Investigating the intricate transcriptional changes occurring in MS brains is critical to unravel novel pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic targets. Unfortunately, this process is often hindered by the difficulty in retrieving an adequate number of samples. However, by merging data from publicly available datasets, it is possible to identify alterations in gene expression profiles and regulatory pathways that were previously overlooked. Here, we merged microarray gene expression profiles obtained from CNS white matter samples taken from MS donors to identify novel differentially expressed genes (DEGs) linked with MS. Data from three independent datasets (GSE38010, GSE32915, and GSE108000) were combined and used to detect novel DEGs using the Stouffer's Z-score method. Corresponding regulatory pathways were analysed using the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway databases. Finally, top up- and down-regulated transcripts were validated by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) using an independent set of white matter tissue samples obtained from MS donors with different disease subtypes. There were a total of 1446 DEGs, of which 742 were up-regulated and 704 genes were down-regulated. DEGs were associated with several myelin-related pathways and protein metabolism pathways. Validation studies of selected top up- or down-regulated genes highlighted MS subtype-specific differences in the expression of some of the identified genes, underlining a more complex scenario of white matter pathology amongst people afflicted by this devastating disease.