Three Novel Neuroblastoma Biomarkers Revealed by Integrative Analysis of GEO data

Comprehensive bioinformatics analysis was used to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between neuroblastoma samples and normal samples in GSE54720 and GSE78061 datasets. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis were performed on common DEGs. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the STRING database and Cytoscape software. The top 15 hub genes were screened out. TAGLN3, KIF5C and SNAP91 were identified by alignment in the PubMed, OMIM, DisGeNET and GeneCards databases and validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). These three are have never been previously reported in the literature and experimentally validated. We identified a total of 37 commom DEGs from the two microarray databases. The KEGG pathway analysis showed that these DEGs were primarily involved in pathway related to dopaminergic synapses, motor proteins and phenylalanine metabolism related pathways. GO enrichment analysis showed that TAGLN3, KIF5C, and SNAP91 related pathway were mainly concentrated in axon guidance, axon genesis, axon development, distal axon, neuronal cell body, and synaptic vesicle transport, suggesting that they may be involved in biological functions such as protein binding, plasma membrane, membrane composition and nucleus. OMIM, DisGeNET, GeneCards databases, and PubMed have identified that TAGLN3, KIF5C, and SNAP91 were linked to proliferation, migration, and invasion of other tumors. Finally, the expression levels of TAGLN3, KIF5C and SNAP91 were significantly increased in SH-SY5Y cells compared with ARPE-19 cells as verified by qPCR, consistent with our bioinformatics analysis, suggesting that TAGLN3, KIF5C and SNAP91 may be involved in the occurrence and development of neuroblastoma. In this study, some key genes and molecules were identified by bioinformatics methods, revealing the potential pathogenic mechanism of neuroblastoma. These genes can serve as diagnostic indicators and therapeutic biomarkers for neuroblastoma, thereby enhancing our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying this disease.