Background & Aims

Since 1996, public data sharing policies have allowed for the vast accumulation of genetic information on the internet. This information is available in multiple omics-wide level studies, allowing researchers to make significant scientific progress in genetics and the study of the molecular pathophysiology of pain conditions. However, the format that this publicly available data is in acts as a barrier to those without the skills and tools needed to convert it into meaningful information. Even for those with the skills, analysis of many datasets would still be laborious. We made the Transcriptomics Pain Signatures Database, containing fully processed transcriptomics datasets to enable the search of differentially expressed genes in pain conditions. Further, the database is available on a website that also allows for the meta-analysis and visualization of these datasets to identify further genes of interest.

Methods

Datasets were collected from the Gene Expression Omnibus. The datasets were chosen by searching “pain” in Geo DataSets, then restricting to expression profiling by array or by high throughput sequencing in the organisms Mus Musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Sus Scrofa, or Homo Sapiens. The research abstract was then read to verify eligibility.
Microarray data was processed in R using GEOquery and differential expression of genes was detected using limma
RNA-seq data was SRA to FASTQ and mapped on the appropriate genome using STAR. The genomes GRCm39 for mice, Rnor6 for rat and GRCh38 for humans were retrieved from Ensembls FTP site. Differential expression of genes was then detected in R using Deseq2 with sex and age as co-variables when appropriate.
The results of the differential gene expression were used as input to ‘fgsea’, where pathways were identified from gene ontology.
Finally, the results are presented using the web app framework Django, where they can be further analysed.

Results

At the time, 338 differential expression contrasts have been included in the database, with over half of the contrasts from high throughput sequencing. Most contrasts are done in mice and rats, and the most common tissues assessed were from the peripheral and central nervous system. Most comparisons were done on the pain state versus control, while most of the remaining studies were gene expression over time and sex related comparisons. The database covers a wide variety of pain types, combining them as either neuropathic pain or inflammatory.
Genes were ranked by their presence in studies across different conditions. For the highly differentially expressed genes, the number of contrasts they appeared in was calculated. Overlap in gene expression in various tissues showed that these shared highly expressed genes were present in up to 34% of blood assays and 65% in the Sciatic nerve.
Pathway analysis also shows commonality in differentially expressed pathways across different tissues.

Conclusions

The database allows researchers to access the vast amounts of information available to them while at the same time being convenient to use. The database aims to be used in hypothesis free analyses by including a variety of transcriptomes from different pain conditions, organisms, tissues and time points. The use of microarray and high throughput sequencing to test genetic content also allows for more information to be gotten from the same study conditions.
The database also helps to remove variation in genetic expression due to factors other than a particular study condition. Through the use of different datasets on the same phenotype with slight variations, we are able to more thoroughly isolate genes contributing to pain with high confidence.
The common differentially expressed genes were compared to known pain genes, finding significant overlap between them. Notably, many differentially expressed genes were not found among known pain genes, creating a source for novel gene studies

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Presenting Author

Calvin Surbey

Poster Authors

Calvin Surbey

BSc

McGill University

Lead Author

Sahel Jahangiri Esfahani

McGill University

Lead Author

Marc Parisien

McGill University

Lead Author

Luda Diatchenko

McGill University

Lead Author

Topics

  • Informatics, Coding, and Pain Registries