Identification and validation of the common pathogenesis and hub biomarkers in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease complicated with atrial fibrillation

Although increasing evidence has shown that there is a correlation between the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and atrial fibrillation (AF), the molecular mechanism underlying their co-occurrence remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to further explore the underlying mechanism and biomarkers for the co-occurrence of COPD and AF. Thus, we analyzed the GEO data of COPD and AF patients via the following methods: GO functional enrichment, protein–protein interaction network construction and module analysis. RT‒qPCR was performed to validate the expression of the hub genes in the COPD and AF patient samples. Bioinformatics analysis confirmed that five hub genes, CSF2RB, RNase6, MS4A6A, TRIQK, and LRRN3, are significant novel biomarkers of COPD and AF and may be beneficial for the early diagnosis and treatment of COPD. Furthermore, the hub genes are related to immune cell infiltration and play important roles in the COPD-AF immune microenvironment. T cells may contribute to the pathogenesis and molecular mechanism of COPD-AF. RT‒qPCR revealed that the expression of RNASE6 and CSF2RB was associated with the co-occurrence of the two diseases. This provides an in-depth study of the underlying mechanism of COPD-AF.