Identification and analysis of key hypoxia- and immune-related genes in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

BACKGROUND: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), an autosomal dominant genetic disease, is the main cause of sudden death in adolescents and athletes globally. Hypoxia and immune factors have been revealed to be related to the pathology of HCM. There is growing evidence of a role for hypoxia and inflammation as triggers and enhancers in the pathology in HCM. However, the role of hypoxia- and immune-related genes in HCM have not been reported. METHODS: Firstly, we obtained four HCM-related datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database for differential expression analysis. Immune cells significantly expressed in normal samples and HCM were then screened by a microenvironmental cell population counter (MCP-counter) algorithm. Next, hypoxia- and immune-related genes were screened by the LASSO + support vector machine recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). Single-gene enrichment analysis and expression validation of key genes were then performed. Finally, we constructed a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network of key genes. RESULTS: In this study, 35 differentially expressed hypoxia genes were found. By using LASSO + SVM-RFE analysis, 10 more targets with differentially expressed hypoxia genes were identified. The MCP-count algorithm yielded five differentially expressed immune cells, and after assessing them for WGCNA characteristics, 612 immune genes were discovered. When hypoxia and immune genes were combined for cross-tabulation analysis, three hypoxia- and immune-related genes (ATP2A2, DDAH1, and OMA1) were identified. CONCLUSION: Based on hypoxia characteristic genes, three key genes were identified. These were also significantly related to immune activation, which proves a theoretical basis and reference value for studying the relationship between HCM and hypoxia and immunity.

Single-center study on transplantation of livers donated after cardiac death: A report of 6 cases.

Effective use of all available donated organs is critical, in order to meet the increasing demand for transplants. The present study explored liver transplantation with livers that were donated following cardiac death (DCD). According to the guidelines established by The Red Cross Society of China, 42 DCD organs were procured. Selected donors were treated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) prior to the organ retrieval. The present single-center study included 6 liver transplantations of DCD organs (5 liver transplants and 1 liver-kidney combined transplant). All 6 recipients had a successful recovery without significant complications. The serum alanine transaminase, total bilirubin and international normalized ratio returned to the normal levels within a short period of time following transplantation, and the liver function remained normal during the follow-up period, which lasted up to 24 months. The present report demonstrated the feasibility of orthotopic liver transplantation using DCD livers. The pre-conditioning DCD donors and optimization of the recipient's condition using ECMO, played a crucial role in ensuring the success of transplantation.