†These authors contributed equally.
Background and objective: Liver regeneration (LR) is a complex process
influenced by various genes and pathways, the majority of the of research on LR
focus on the initiation and proliferation phase while studies on termination
phase is lacking. We aimed to identify potential genes and reveal the underlying
the molecular mechanisms involved in the precise regulation of liver size during
the termination phase of LR.
Materials and methods: We obtained the rat liver tissue gene datasets
(GSE63742) collected following partial hepatectomy (PH) from the Gene Expression
Omnibus (GEO) of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), from
which, this study screened the late stage LR samples (7 days post-PH) using the
R/Bioconductor packages for the identification of differentially expressed genes
(DEGs). Afterwards, we performed enrichment analysis using the database for
annotation visualization and integrated discovery (DAVID) online tool. Moreover,
the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting proteins (STRING) database was
employed to construct protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks based on those
identified DEGs; the PPI network was then used by Cytoscape software to predict
hub genes and nodes. Animal experimentation (Rat PH model) was performed to
acquire liver tissues which were then used for western blot analysis to verify
our results.
Results: The present study identified together 74 significant DEGs,
among which, 51 showed up-regulation while 23 presented as down-regulated. As
revealed by KEGG pathway enrichment analysis, DEGs were mostly related to
pathways such as retinol metabolism, steroid hormone synthesis, transforming
growth factor-
