Fig 1.
The summary of the dataset GSE74123.
(A) The cluster heatmap of GSE74123. (B) The PCA of GSE74123 showed that significant differences between the two groups of samples. (C) Pearson heatmap showed the correlation between the two groups of samples. There was a high correlation within each group of samples. (D) The volcano plot showed the distribution of all genes by fold change and P value. The expression of FECD group was compared with control group. Genes with |log2 (fold change) | > 1 and P value < 0.05 were selected as the DEGs.
Fig 2.
The biological process (BP) in GO enrichment of DEGs.
(A) The top 25 significantly up-regulated BP GO terms in FECD group. (B) The top 25 significantly down-regulated BP GO terms in FECD group.
Fig 3.
Heatmaps of four major types of genes.
(A) Senescence, (B) ECM, (C) EMT, (D) visual perception and (E) immune response related DEGs were picked and normalized by Z-score. Red represents up-regulated expression. Blue represents up-regulated expression.
Fig 4.
Signaling pathway analysis in symptomatic late-onset FECD.
(A) Top 25 significantly different pathways were selected according to DEGs in FECD. (B) PPI of genes which appeared more than 10 times in significantly different pathways. Some important pathways in this study were labeled on it. (C) Signaling pathway network was plotted according to KEGG database.
Fig 5.
The schematic diagram of possible pathological and molecular mechanisms of symptomatic late-onset FECD.
In the symptomatic late-onset of FECD, corneal stroma is cloudy. DM becomes thick. Corneal guttae appear. The density of CECs is decreased. CECs lose their hexagonal shape. The reason for these phenomena is that the expression of cell senescence, EMT, ECM and immune response related genes changes.