Ferroptosis related genes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: screening for potential pharmacological targets

AbstractAs a new form of cell death, ferroptosis has been found to play an important role in motor neuron injury or death in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This study aims to explore a new direction for ALS treatment by screening potential drug targets related to ferroptosis. The ALS dataset GSE112676 was analyzed. Venn diagram was drawn to screen differential expression genes (DEGs) specifically related to ferroptosis. We annotated these DEGs functionally. The protein - protein interaction network was constructed by STRING and the hub genes was screened by Cytoscape. Candidate pharmacological compounds were screened by Connectivity Map. We found 20 DEGs related to ferroptosis in ALS. The biological processes involved in these genes mainly include temperature homeostasis, long-chain fatty-acyl-CoA metabolic process, fatty-acyl-CoA metabolic process, cellular response to external stimulus and regulation of peptidyl-serine phosphorylation. KEGG results showed that these genes were mainly involved in the ferroptosis signaling pathway. We constructed protein-protein interaction networks of DEGs and obtained the top 10 drugs recommended for ALS. This study revealed the potential role of genes related to ferroptosis in ALS by bioinformatics methods. Hub genes and potential drugs may become novel biomarkers for ALS treatment in the future.