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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Molecular Viral Pathogenesis
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2024.1425393
This article is part of the Research Topic Research on the Pathogenesis of Herpetic Diseases and Novel Treatment Strategies View all 4 articles

Exploring blood transcriptomic signatures in patients with herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia

Provisionally accepted
Chunliang Wang Chunliang Wang 1Kaiyi Zhang Kaiyi Zhang 2Yuhan Bao Yuhan Bao 2Ye Liu Ye Liu 1You Zhou You Zhou 2Yonghua Ji Yonghua Ji 2Hongjie Wang Hongjie Wang 2*Zhi-Yong Tan Zhi-Yong Tan 2*
  • 1 Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei Province, China
  • 2 Hebei University, Baoding, China

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

    Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a common, severe, and hard-to-treat chronic pain condition in clinics. Although PHN is developed from herpes zoster (HZ), the developing mechanism is unknown. A previous study has investigated the blood metabolomic and proteomic profiling in patients with PHN and HZ. The current study aims to explore the blood transcriptomic signature of PHN compared to HZ patients. Whole blood from eight PHN and fifteen HZ patients were used for RNA-Seq analysis. There were 82 and 1788 genes detected specifically in PHN and HZ groups, respectively. PHN-specific genes are involved in viral infection, lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and immune response. For genes co-expressed in PHN and HZ patients, there were 407 differential expression genes (DEGs) including 205 up-regulated (UP DEGs) and 202 down-regulated (DOWN DEGs) in PHN compared to HZ groups. DEGs are involved in viral infection, type I interferon (IFN), and hemoglobin and oxygen carrier activity. UP DEGs are associated with regulatory T cells (Tregs), activated NK cells, and neutrophils while DOWN DEGs are associated with Tregs, resting NK cells, and monocytes. The results suggest that metabolism of lipid, glycan, and nucleotide, type I IFN signaling, and altered neutrophil activation are associated with, and might contribute to the development of PHN from HZ. It is also suggested that persistent or altered activation of non-specific immunity may contribute to the development of PHN from HZ.

    Keywords: DEG, differential expression gene, DO, disease ontology, DOWN DEG, down-regulated DEG, GO, gene ontology, HZ, herpes zoster, IFN, type I interferon, NLR, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, ORF, open reading frame

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 19 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Zhang, Bao, Liu, Zhou, Ji, Wang and Tan. 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:
    Hongjie Wang, Hebei University, Baoding, China
    Zhi-Yong Tan, Hebei University, Baoding, 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.