Partial Least Squares Based Gene Expression Analysis in EBVPositive and EBV-Negative Posttransplant Lymphoproliferative Disorders

Abstract

Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) is a common complication of therapeuticimmunosuppression after organ transplantation. Gene expression profile facilitates the identification of biologicaldifference between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) positive and negative PTLDs. Previous studies mainly implementedvariance/regression analysis without considering unaccounted array specific factors. The aim of this study isto investigate the gene expression difference between EBV positive and negative PTLDs through partial leastsquares (PLS) based analysis. With a microarray data set from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, weperformed PLS based analysis. We acquired 1188 differentially expressed genes. Pathway and Gene Ontologyenrichment analysis identified significantly over-representation of dysregulated genes in immune response andcancer related biological processes. Network analysis identified three hub genes with degrees higher than 15,including CREBBP, ATXN1, and PML. Proteins encoded by CREBBP and PML have been reported to be interactwith EBV before. Our findings shed light on expression distinction of EBV positive and negative PTLDs withthe hope to offer theoretical support for future therapeutic study.