Whole-blood gene expression profiling in ankylosing spondylitis identifies novel candidate genes that may contribute to the inflammatory and tissue-destructive disease aspects

• 11 Genes had a close relationship with AS.
• DEGs in conPPI are related with immune response.
• Most genes in the 2 modules exist in cell receptor signaling pathway.
• Most genes in the 2 modules exist in natural killer cell mediated cytotoxicity.
• Most genes in the 2 modules exist in primary immunodeficiency.

We performed a comprehensive gene expression analysis to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between AS (ankylosing spondylitis) and health controls. A total of 1454 DEGs were obtained, including 919 up-regulated genes and 535 down-regulated genes. There were 218 interactions and 224 pairs in the conPPI network. Topological analysis showed that 11 genes had a close relationship with AS. GO (gene ontology) functional enrichment analysis of the two modules showed that the DEGs in conPPI mainly participated in the biologic process of immune response. The KEGG pathway analysis showed that most DEGs in the two modules were enriched into cell receptor signaling pathway, natural killer cell mediated cytotoxicity and primary immunodeficiency. We hypothesized that these DEGs associated with immune response DEGs might provide basic for depth understanding of the AS development.