Identification of Key Genes and Pathway Associated with Subfertility in Bos Taurus: a Bioinformatics Study

Subfertility is an important issue in dairy cow industry which can negatively eclipse economics of a farm. Thereby, investigation of the biological phenomena which can lead to subfertility is crucial. The current study was designed to identify hub genes and biological pathways related to subfertility. In this case, an endometrial gene expression profile including 6 fertile and 5 subfertile samples of Bos taurus was collected from database. First, up-regulated and down-regulated differentially expressed genes of the samples were screened by Geo2R server. Then, protein-protein interaction network analysis, module analysis, gene ontology enrichment analysis, pathway analysis and hub gene identification of differentially expressed genes were conducted using reliable tools and software. Based on the results of comparison between fertile and subfertile samples, 169 genes were identified as differentially expressed genes which contained 53 and 116 up-regulated and down-regulated genes, respectively. Moreover, the results of module analysis confirmed existence of four clusters which their scores were between 2.8 and 3. The results of gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed that neurotransmitter secretion, extracellular space, steroid dehydrogenase activity, synaptic vesicle cycle were the most significant terms of biological process, cellular compartment, molecular function and KEGG pathway, respectively. Finally, the results revealed that 5 genes including SYT1, ITGAM, HABP2, CHGA and TAT were hub genes which can be introduced as a proper molecular marker for breeding and management of cattle reproduction programs.