Ingenuity pathway analysis of human facet joint tissues: Insight into facet joint osteoarthritis

Facet joint osteoarthritis (FJOA) is a common degenerative joint disorder with high prevalence in the elderly. FJOA causes lower back pain and lower extremity pain, and thus severely impacts the quality of life of affected patients. Emerging studies have focused on the histomorphological and histomorphometric changes in FJOA. However, the dynamic genetic changes in FJOA have remained to be clearly determined. In the present study, previously obtained RNA deep sequencing data were subjected to an ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) and canonical signaling pathways of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in FJOA were studied. The top 25 enriched canonical signaling pathways were identified and canonical signaling pathways with high absolute values of z-scores, specifically leukocyte extravasation signaling, Tec kinase signaling and osteoarthritis pathway, were investigated in detail. DEGs were further categorized by disease, biological function and toxicity (tox) function. The genetic networks between DEGs as well as hub genes in these functional networks were also investigated. It was demonstrated that C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 8, elastase, neutrophil expressed, growth factor independent 1 transcriptional repressor, Spi-1 proto-oncogene, CCAAT enhancer binding protein epsilon, GATA binding protein 1, TAL bHLH transcription factor 1, erythroid differentiation factor, minichromosome maintenance complex component 4, BTG anti-proliferation factor 2, BRCA1 DNA repair-associated, cyclin D1, chromatin assembly factor 1 subunit A, triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 1 and tumor protein p63 were hub genes in the top 5 IPA networks (with a score >30). The present study provides insight into the pathological processes of FJOA from a genetic perspective and may thus benefit the clinical treatment of FJOA.