| Objective To screen out the differential autophagy-related genes in knee osteoarthritis by bioinformatics analysis, and to obtain the miRNA and transcription factor regulatory network of the hub genes, so as to illustrate the role of autophagy in the pathogenesis of knee osteoarthritis. Methods Firstly, the gene expression profiles of GSE55235 and GSE169077 were downloaded and integrated through the GEO database, and the difference analysis and WGCNA analysis of the integrated gene expression matrices were performed using the R package. Then, the two analysis results with the autophagy-related genes which obtained from the genecards database were intersected to obtain the differential autophagy-related genes, and the GO, KEGG, and GSEA enrichment analysis were performed in these genes. Finally, the hub genes were screened out by using CytoHubba plug-in in cytoscape and were validated in the validating dataset GSE98918. Results A total of 111 differentially expressed autophagy-related genes were obtained, in which 7 hub genes including COL1A1, MMP9, CCL5, CX3CR1, ITGB2, PTPRC, and CSF1R were considered more reliable. The regulatory networks of miRNA and transcription factor with the 7 hub genes were obtained respectively. Conclusion Autophagy plays an important role in the pathogenesis of knee osteoarthritis. Seven differentially expressed autophagy-related genes including COL1A1, MMP9, CCL5, CX3CR1, ITGB2, PTPRC, and CSF1R can be used as potential biomarkers to provide new ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of this disease. |