Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Cell Death and Survival
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2025.1488904

Construction of a Novel Gene Signature Linked to Ferroptosis in Pediatric Sepsis

Provisionally accepted
Mingyuan Fan Mingyuan Fan 1Meiting Chen Meiting Chen 1Yongqi Gao Yongqi Gao 2Huilin Jiang Huilin Jiang 1Yanling Li Yanling Li 1Gongxu Zhu Gongxu Zhu 1Shengkuan Chen Shengkuan Chen 1Yiming Xu Yiming Xu 2*Xiaohui Chen Xiaohui Chen 1*
  • 1 Emergency Department, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
  • 2 School of Basic Medical Sciences, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Pediatric sepsis is a multifaceted condition marked by life-threatening organ failure due to an uncontrolled host response to infection in children. Recent studies have suggested that ferroptosis, a newly identified form of programmed cell death, may play a role in sepsis progression. However, the exact landscape of ferroptosis is still unclear. In this study, through analyzing the microarray datasets implemented in pediatric sepsis samples and healthy blood samples, we identified 74 genes associated with ferroptosis in pediatric sepsis After analysis through a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and histological validation, we confirmed the existence of five key genes (MAPK3, MAPK8, PPARG, PTEN, and STAT3). We also performed an immune infiltration analysis and examined the correlation between immune cells, immune checkpoint-related genes, and key genes. Finally, we built a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network of key genes to explore the regulatory mechanisms among long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), microRNAs (miRNAs), and key genes. These findings provide deeper insights into the comprehensive understanding of ferroptosis and potential therapeutic targets for pediatric sepsis.

    Keywords: Pediatric sepsis, Ferroptosis-related genes, Immune infiltration, ceRNA network, Gene Expression Omnibus data base

    Received: 30 Aug 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Fan, Chen, Gao, Jiang, Li, Zhu, Chen, Xu and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yiming Xu, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510170, Guangdong Province, China
    Xiaohui Chen, Emergency Department, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.