Insulin dysregulation plays a critical role in colon inflammation: a bioinformatics approach.

Aim: Evaluating and screening of genes related to colorectal inflammation of mice for finding critical ones in this disease was the aim of this study.

Background: Many studies are shown direct relationship between inflammation and colorectal cancer onset and development. Several molecular aspects of inflammation are investigated to discover molecular mechanism of this disease.

Methods: Profiles of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of mice inflamed colorectal tissue in comparison with normal samples are obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The significant and characterized DEGs were screened via protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Hubs of the network were determined and backbone network was constructed. Moreover, action network for the critical nodes was constructed and analyzed.

Results: Eight central genes including IL6, ALB, PRDM10, AKT1, GAPDH, IL8, INS and TNF were determined as hub nodes. Findings indicate that insulin plays critical role in regulation of hub genes. This finding shows association between inflammation and metabolism dysregulation. Except PRDM10 and GAPDH, the other hubs show considerable regulatory effects on each other.

Conclusion: Inflammation of colorectal tissue is strongly depended on metabolism especially to insulin function.