Identification of candidate biomarkers of liver hydatid disease via microarray profiling, bioinformatics analysis, and machine learning

OBJECTIVES: Liver echinococcosis is a severe zoonotic disease caused by Echinococcus (tapeworm) infection, which is epidemic in the Qinghai region of China. Here, we aimed to explore biomarkers and establish a predictive model for the diagnosis of liver echinococcosis. METHODS: Microarray profiling followed by Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis was performed in liver tissue from patients with liver hydatid disease and from healthy controls from the Qinghai region of China. A protein–protein interaction (PPI) network and random forest model were established to identify potential biomarkers and predict the occurrence of liver echinococcosis, respectively. RESULTS: Microarray profiling identified 1152 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 936 upregulated genes and 216 downregulated genes. Several previously unreported biological processes and signaling pathways were identified. The FCGR2B and CTLA4 proteins were identified by the PPI networks and random forest model. The random forest model based on FCGR2B and CTLA4 reliably predicted the occurrence of liver hydatid disease, with an area under the receiver operator characteristic curve of 0.921. CONCLUSION: Our findings give new insight into gene expression in patients with liver echinococcosis from the Qinghai region of China, improving our understanding of hepatic hydatid disease.