Bioinformatics analysis of ferroptosis in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Atrial Fibrillation

Background. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common chronic respiratory diseases. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in humans. COPD is closely related to AF, sharing the common risk factors like decreased oxygenation, hypercapnia, oxidative stress, inflammation, etc. Ferroptosis is a form of iron-dependent regulated cell death, although recent studies have found that ferroptosis can promote pulmonary fibrosis and myocardial fibrosis, the mechanism of ferroptosis of COPD and AF has still not been fully elucidated. In this study, we intend to provide new insights into the bioinformatics analysis of ferroptosis underlying AF and COPD. Methods. We download datasets from GEO database, obtained the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between AF and COPD. Then, we took the intersection of these DEGs and ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) to obtain Ferroptosis Related Differentially Expressed Genes (FRDEGs). Subsequently, we conducted Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) ^{pathways analyses, Protein-Protein Interaction Network (PPI Network) construction, immune infiltration analysis and other analyses on these eight FRDEGs. Results. We acquired eight FRDEGs namely AKR1C1, EFEMP1, TIMP1, ANXA3, PTGS2, CKB, HTR2B , and ANO1 . These eight FRDEGs were mainly enriched in ameboidal-type cell migration, endoplasmic reticulum lumen, growth factor activity. In addition, a PPI network was constructed for six hub genes. Functional similarity analysis ranked their significance in the disease as TIMP1 > PTGS2 > HTR2B > ANXA3 > EFEMP1 > AKR1C1. Immune infiltration analysis revealed Regulatory T cells and Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells exhibited the strongest correlation. PTGS2 showed a significant positive correlation with Eosinophil infiltration. Conclusion. Our findings suggest that ferroptosis-related pathways may contribute to the pathophysiology of COPD and AF, offering potential targets for therapeutic intervention, like the application of ferroptosis inhibitors may alleviate these two diseases.}