Biomedical Research

Background: Thyroid Disorders (TD) and Coronary Artery Diseases (CAD) are among the highly prevalent diseases across the globe. Medical literature suggests a strong interconnection between the occurrences of the two diseases as well as the origin of the two organs. Patients with thyroid abnormalities are likely to develop cardiac dysfunctions and vice versa.

Aim: In this paper we attempt to explore similar biological and genetic features among Thyroid Disorder (TD) and Coronary Artery Diseases (CAD). Secondly, we also analyse the genetic networks to determine the most significant common genes.

Methods: Genes related to the diseases were searched and retrieved from National Centre for Biotechnology Information. Initially 100 genes for thyroid disorders and1896 for coronary artery diseases were downloaded. After pre-processing, we had 94 and 980 exclusively homo-sapiens genes for thyroid disorders and coronary artery diseases, respectively. Also, 37 common genes were explored. Among them 14 significant genes were selected for further analysis. Thereafter, protein-protein interaction network, enrichment analysis, topological properties analysis, physical interaction network, co-expression network, gene regulatory network were constructed. Also, protein-drug interaction, protein-chemical interaction and drug-gene interaction analysis were conducted.

Results: TD and CAD are related to each other on the genetic level. TNF, SIRT1 and STAT3 are the most significant common genes amongst these two diseases.

Conclusion: This analysis establishes a biological and genetic link between the two diseases. Drug-gene analysis indicates some potential drug targets. This can be considered for further verification and validation chemical experiments.

Author(s): Richa Kahol, Atul Kathait
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