Asian Journal of Immunology

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is an allergic disease of the upper respiratory tract, becoming a global health problem with its mechanism still not clearly explained. To unveil the pathogenesis and immunology of AR, a transcriptomic assay was executed between the AR patient and control with nasal turbinate bone hyperplasia by RNAseq method and the data were processed by GO, KEGG and functional network analysis. The results showed that 131 common DEGs were obtained between AR patients and control. Based on the 131 DEGs, GO analysis indicated that these DEGs were enriched on 39 GO terms, including two main functions, positive regulation of myeloid cell apoptosis and leukocyte aggregation. Otherwise, KEGG pathway analysis revealed 87 pathways, including two major pathways: staphylococcus aureus infection pathway and IL-17 signaling pathway. The biological process of the 131 DEGs can be divided into 3 groups: humoral immune response, positive regulation of endopeptidase activity, regulating protein processing. Functional network of the 131 DEGs sketched by Cytoscape software showed that when the degree of the network was raised to 15, only 11 genes had a linking degree more than 5, with only PLEKHC1 linking the up- and down-regulated genes. Coincidently, when diagramming all the 29 genes related directly with CD68, the gene with the largest linking degree, PLEKHC1 was found to be the only down-regulated gene. These results revealed some characteristic genes and IL-17 signaling pathways were critical for the pathogenesis of AR, which provides some evidence for further research on the immunology and pathogenesis of AR.