Leveraging Clinical Trancriptomic Data for Targeted Drug Interventions in Preclinical Models of SCI
Abstract
One of the reasons for the lack of successful clinical trials for spinal cord injury (SCI) is the lack of biomarkers for patient stratification. We have recently proposed a novel approach for the discovery of white blood cell (WBC) RNA biomarkers. Our approach yielded transcriptomic signatures in human WBCs that accurately diagnose SCI severity. Our hypothesis is that these gene modules are also functionally involved in the pathophysiology of SCI and could be targeted for the development of therapeutics. We performed Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis on RNAseq data from WBCs in humans and rats after SCI and identified gene modules associated with SCI severity in both species. Using homologenes, we identified conserved WBC gene modules with several of them being highly associated with SCI severity in both species. WBC transcriptomic biomarkers may potentially be used as targets for therapeutic interventions after SCI. Using evolutionarily conserved SCI-induced gene signatures significantly increases the probability for an effective preclinical model to be translatable in human SCI.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1219924
Entities
People
- Abel Torres-Espín
- Adam R. Ferguson
- Amity Lin
- Jacqueline Bresnahan
- Kenneth Fond
- Michael Oldham
- Michael S Beattie
- Nikolaos Kyritsis
Organizations
- University of California, San Francisco