Identification of key genes and microRNAs involved in the Androctonus Crassicauda apoptosis pathway

The occurrence of planned cell death or apoptosis as a protected method is controlled by a number of genes that used to remove unnecessary cells. This cellular event is involved in immune and disease-related systems. Apoptosis is a cellular regulatory mechanism that balances the effects of cell proliferation and cell death. In the path of apoptosis, many genes and molecules are involved. Recently, developments using the RNAseq technique have shown that microRNAs play an important role in regulating planned cell death or apoptosis. The purpose of this study was to identify key genes and micro-RNAs affecting the apoptosis pathway in Androctonus crassicauda scorpions.

In this study, after transcriptome sequencing of venom glands of A. crassicauda scorpions using Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform and transcriptome assembly using Trinity software, the most important transcripts of the scorpion venom gland involved in apoptosis were identified using the KEGG database. Drawing of the apoptosis gene network with String software, analyzing the network of protein interactions and identifying key genes using cytoscape software and investigating the ontology of genes by the WebGestalt database were done. In addition, after identifying the scorpion microRNAs using homogeneous searches, the MRTarBase, TarBase, miRecords, and MirNet software programs were utilized to prediction of target genes and drawing a protein-microRNA interaction network.

Three pathways associated with apoptosis were identified, and 103 proteins were extracted from those. The results of protein network analysis revealed that 30 key genes involved in apoptosis were identified that according to obtained results, the most effective key genes involved in apoptosis are Akt1, bsk, Jra, Dronc, and rl. The results of statistical analysis of protein-microRNA interaction network also showed that mir-7-5p microRNA has the highest value.

The results of this study showed that microRNAs play an essential role in the regulation of many genes in the apoptosis pathway and can be used to regulate the expression of genes.