Variations In Adamantinomatous Craniopharyngioma: A Gene Set Enrichment Analysis

Adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma (ACP) is an epithelial tumor that occurs in the sellar region; it may be derived from embryonic residue of the Rathke fissure epithelium. Surgery is difficult to perform and resection success rates are low because the tumor can invade and compress important surrounding structures. Therefore, it is necessary to find a safer and more effective treatment for ACP. Our research involved access to microarray data (GSE68015), and we identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between ACP and healthy samples using the limma package. We performed a gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) based on Gene Ontology (GO) and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), constructed and analyzed a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, and identified the significant modules. We identified 75 DEGs, comprising 64 upregulated genes and 11 downregulated genes in ACP samples compared with their expressions in healthy brain samples. The GSEA of these DEGs provided a comprehensive overview of some major pathophysiological mechanisms involved in ACP, including the roles played by the intermediate filaments, transport vesicles, and membranes. We also built a PPI network and identified five key genes: CDH1, KRT19, KRT16, KRT5, and KRT14. When comparing the ACP and healthy brain samples, 75 DEGs and five hub genes were identified that may be involved in the occurrence and progression of ACP, in particular the genes involved with the intermediate filaments.