Asmaa Mohamed Reda
Lecturer
Integrative Systems-Level Transcriptomic Network Analysis Identifies Candidate Genes Associated with Biofilm Formation and Virulence in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
International Journal of Molecular Sciences • 2026
Publication Information
Authors
Sara H. Mohamed, Asmaa Reda, Tarek A. Yousef, Mona G. Nada, Maha S. I. Wizrah, Sahar A. Mandour
Keywords
Pseudomonas aeruginosa; biofilm; WGCNA; pathogenesis; drug-resistant; bioinformatics
Journal
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Publisher
MDPI
Volume
27
Issue
12
Pages
Not Available
publication.type
International
Paper Link
Open Link
Supplementary Materials
Not Available
Abstract
Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) is a multidrug-resistant opportunistic pathogen that causes both acute and chronic infections and is known for its ability to form biofilms. In the current study, we applied a hypothesis-generating framework primarily based on integrating four different datasets and applying batch correction. Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) was performed in parallel with differential expression analysis using limma. Therefore, we aimed to identify potential biofilm-associated gene candidates. Significant candidate genes were subjected to functional analysis and gene ontology, followed by the construction of a protein–protein interaction network using STRING. The Pseudomonas Genome Database was used to highlight the candidate genes. A total of 271, 687, 533, and 277 significantly up-regulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs), as well as 306, 985, 472, and 312 significantly down-regulated DEGs, resulted from the exploratory analysis. Through WGCNA/limma integration, 223 common significantly up-regulated/positively correlated gene candidates were identified. Functional analysis results showed significant enrichment in virulence-related pathways, such as biofilm formation (PA0083, PA0084, hcp1, hcpC, pilH, pilI, pilJ, vfr, pqsA, pqsB, pqsC, pqsE, PA1657, and PA1658). In addition, other virulence-related pathways, such as quorum sensing, phenazine biosynthesis, the bacterial secretion system, and secondary metabolite biosynthesis, were enriched. In conclusion, our hypothesis-generating integrative analysis identifies candidate genes and potential pathways associated with biofilm formation, virulence, and other processes in P. aeruginosa. In light of this, we point out that all candidate genes presented in this study remain hypothesis-generating. Further validation is recommended, including large-scale in silico analyses and in vitro experimental studies.
