Screening the causative genes of nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) by bioinformatics and provide targets for further research.

By downloading the gene chip datasets GSE110147, GSE21369, GSE40839 from the GEO database, and using the limma package analysis tool to screen out the differentially expressed genes between normal tissues and NSIP. The clusterProfiler package was used to perform GO analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis on the differentially expressed genes to find the biological functions of the differentially expressed genes and their concentrated signaling pathways in the pathogenesis of NSIP. To study the relationship between differentially expressed genes and proteins, the STRING database and CYTOSCAPE software were used to construct the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, and the MCODE software was used to extract the sub-network modules in the protein interaction network.

Veen plots result suggested three common significantly differentially expressed genes were found. GO enrichment analysis showed that up-regulated differentially expressed genes in NSIP mainly affected biological processes related to RNA splicing, antiviral infection, and cellular responses to peptides. The enriched molecules are mainly involved in the synthesis, secretion, and splicing complexes of cellular components, and the enriched molecular function are mainly involved in ATPase activity, receptor ligand activity and DNA-binding transcription activator activity. The down-regulated proteins in NSIP are mainly involved in biological processes regulated by transferase activity. KEGG pathway analysis showed that the up-regulated differentially expressed genes in NSIP were mainly involved in signaling pathways such as PI3K-Akt pathways, human papilloma virus infection pathways and MAPK pathways.

The differentially expressed genes screened by bioinformatics may be new targets for the pathogenesis of NSIP, which is significant for the future clinical diagnosis and treatment of NSIP.