Diabetic Retinopathy and Laser Therapy in Rats: A Protein-Protein Interaction Network Analysis

Abstract Introduction: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a serious microvascular complication of diabetes which can cause vision loss or blindness ultimately. Non enzymatic glycation of proteins leads to advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in DR. Since laser therapy is a well-established method, in this study, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network is applied for protein targets in DR disease in rats treated by laser.Methods: In this study, we focused on articles that investigated and compared the proteome profiles of DR rats with healthy control and also DR rats before and after laser therapy. The networks of related differentially expressed proteins were explored using Cytoscape version ۳.۳.۰, the PPI analysis methods and ClueGO.Results: Analysis of PPI network of ۳۷ related proteins to DR rats including ۱۰۸ nodes, introduced ۱۰ hub-bottleneck proteins and ۵ concerned biochemical pathways. On the other hand, PPI analysis of related proteins to DR rats before and after laser therapy corresponded to ۳۳ proteins and ۲ biological pathways.Discussion: Centrality and cluster screening identified hub-bottelneck genes, including Aldoa, HSPD۱, Pgam۲, Mapk۳, SLC۲A۴, Ctnnb۱, Ywhab, HSPA۸, GAPDH and Actb for DR rats versus healthy control and ENO۱, Aldoa, GAPDH for DR samples after laser therapy.Conclusion: Gene expression analysis of the DR samples treated via laser therapy provides a molecular evidence in support of the therapeutic effect of laser. Keywords: Diabetic retinopathy rat Laser therapy Protein-protein interaction network (PPI) analysis.