Identification of Key Genes and Potential Pathways Associated with Mastitis Induced by E. coli

Mastitis is one of the most important diseases of dairy cattle. It is an infectious disease leading to an inflammatory reaction in the cow's mammary gland. Escherichia coli is one of the common bacteria which induce mastitis in cows. The aim of this study was to identify key genes and potential pathways associated with mastitis induced by E. coli in dairy cattle using bioinformatics analysis. The gene expression profile of ten samples including five adjacent tissues from a quarter infected with Escherichia coli and five tissues from a healthy quarter of dairy cattle was assessed using GEO2R. Gene ontology and pathway analysis were performed using bioinformatics tools. A total of 156 differentially expressed genes were detected which 95 genes were upregulated and 61 genes were downregulated in adjacent tissue of quarter infected compared with healthy tissue. Cellular oxidant detoxification and oxidation–reduction process were the most significant biological process terms in gene ontology analysis. The most important pathways of DEGs were the biosynthesis of amino acids, p53 signaling pathway, and Metabolic pathways. Three important modules were identified and their path enrichment analysis was performed. There are 10 core genes, among which SOD2, COL1A2, COL3A1, POSTN, ALDH18A1, and CBS may be the main genes associated with mastitis, which can be considered as candidate genes in the prevention and carly diagnosis program of mastitis.