Identification of potential dilated cardiomyopathy-related targets by meta-analysis and co-expression analysis of human RNA-sequencing datasets

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) remains among the most refractory heart diseases because of its complicated pathogenesis, and the key molecules that cause it remain unclear. To elucidate the molecules and upstream pathways critical for DCM pathogenesis, we performed meta-analysis and co-expression analysis of RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) datasets from publicly available databases. We analyzed three RNA-seq datasets containing comparisons of RNA expression in left ventricles between healthy controls and DCM patients. We extracted differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and clarified upstream regulators of cardiovascular disease-related DEGs by Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA). Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) and Protein–Protein Interaction (PPI) analysis were also used to identify the hub gene candidates strongly associated with DCM. In total, 406 samples (184 healthy, 222 DCM) were used in this study. Overall, 391 DEGs [absolute fold change (FC) ≥ 1.5; P