Identification and development of a novel 5-gene diagnostic model based on immune infiltration analysis of osteoarthritis

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis (OA), which is due to the progressive loss and degeneration of articular cartilage, is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore OA biomarkers for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of OA. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The GSE129147, GSE57218, GSE51588, GSE117999, and GSE98918 datasets with normal and OA samples were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The GSE117999 and GSE98918 datasets were integrated, and immune infiltration was evaluated. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were analyzed using the limma package in R, and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to explore the co-expression genes and co-expression modules. The co-expression module genes were analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses. A protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING) database, and hub genes were identified by the degree, MNC, closeness, and MCC algorithms. The hub genes were used to construct a diagnostic model based on support vector machines. RESULTS: The Immune Score in the OA samples was significantly higher than in the normal samples, and a total of 2313 DEGs were identified. Through WGCNA, we found that the yellow module was significantly positively correlated with the OA samples and Immune Score and negatively correlated with the normal samples. The 142 DEGs of the yellow module were related to biological processes such as regulation of inflammatory response, positive regulation of inflammatory response, blood vessel morphogenesis, endothelial cell migration, and humoral immune response. The intersections of the genes obtained by the 4 algorithms resulted in 5 final hub genes, and the diagnostic model constructed with these 5 genes showed good performance in the training and validation cohorts. CONCLUSIONS: The 5-gene diagnostic model can be used to diagnose OA and guide clinical decision-making. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12967-021-03183-9.