Anesthetic Propofol-Induced Gene Expression Changes in Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery Based on Dynamical Differential Coexpression Network Analysis

We aimed to determine the influence of anesthetic propofol on gene expression in patients treated by coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery based on differential coexpression network (DCN) and to further reveal the novel mechanisms of the cardioprotective effects of propofol. Firstly, we constructed the DCN for disease condition based on Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) and weight value. Secondly, the inference of modules was applied to search modules from DCN with same members but varied connectivity. Furthermore, we measured the statistical significance of the modules for selecting differential modules (DMs). Finally, attract method was used for DMs analysis to select key modules. Based on the 𝛿 value, 11928 edges and 2956 nodes were chosen to construct DCNs. A total of 29 seed genes were selected. Moreover, by quantifying connectivity changes in shared gene modules across different conditions, 8 DMs with higher connectivity dynamics were identified. Then, we extracted key modules using attract method, there were 8 key modules, and the top 3 modules were module 1, 2, and 3. Furthermore, GCG, PPY, and PON1 were initial seed genes of these 3 key modules, respectively. Accordingly, GCG and PON1 might exert important roles in the cardioprotective effects of propofol during CABG.