Abstract:Objective: To explore the core genes and pathways of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). Methods: The differentially expressed genes between EAC tissue and normal esophageal tissue were analyzed with GEO database. A variety of online analysis software were used for functional enrichment, pathway analysis, construction of protein-protein interaction network, and selection of core genes. Combined with TCGA and Oncomine database, the core genes were verified, the ROC curves were drawn and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated. Results: A total of 141 core genes were obtained from 4 GEO datasets, which were mainly enriched in the extracellular matrix, mainly in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathways, and tyrosine, histidine, phenylalanine and β-alanine metabolic pathways. COL1A2, TIMP1 and MMP1 were screened out in TCGA and Oncomine databases. The AUC of COL1A2 was 0.707-0.954, that of TIMP1 was 0.795-0.984, and that of MMP1 is 0.896-1.000. Conclusion: Screening out core genes and pathways related to EAC by bioinformatics is helpful for early molecular diagnosis and gene targeted therapy of EAC.
