Membranous nephropathy (MN) is an autoimmune disease and represents the most prevalent type of renal pathology in adult patients afflicted with nephrotic syndrome. Despite substantial evidence suggesting a possible link between MN and cancer, the precise underlying mechanisms remain elusive.
In this study, we acquired and integrated two MN datasets (comprising a single-cell dataset and a bulk RNA-seq dataset) from the Gene Expression Omnibus database for differential expression gene (DEG) analysis, hub genes were obtained by LASSO and random forest algorithms, the diagnostic ability of hub genes was assessed using ROC curves, and the degree of immune cell infiltration was evaluated using the ssGSEA function. Concurrently, we gathered pan-cancer-related genes from the TCGA and GTEx databases, to analyze the expression, mutation status, drug sensitivity and prognosis of hub genes in pan-cancer.
We conducted intersections between the set of 318 senescence-related genes and the 366 DEGs, resulting in the identification of 13 senescence-related DEGs. Afterwards, we meticulously analyzed these genes using the LASSO and random forest algorithms, which ultimately led to the discovery of six hub genes through intersection (
This evidence indicates that these genes could potentially play a pivotal role as a critical link connecting MN and cancer. As a result, they may hold promise as valuable targets for intervention in cases of both MN and cancer.