Air pollution and COPD: Unveiling the mechanisms through network toxicology and transcriptomics

Abstract

Over the past five decades, air pollution has posed a growing threat to human health, particularly affecting the respiratory system. This study aims to investigate the potential molecular mechanisms underlying the relationship between exposure to air pollutants and the development of COPD and to identify potential gene targets that may play a key role in this process. In this study, researchers used several publicly available databases to obtain target genes related to air pollutants and COPD, determine the overlapping genes between them and performed GO and KEGG enrichment analyses to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. Cross-validation was performed using multiple datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to screen out candidate targets, and molecular docking techniques were utilized to investigated molecular interactions between candidate targets and air pollutants. Candidate targets were subsequently validated and analyzed using immune cell infiltration analysis, single-cell transcriptome data, risk prediction model construction and clinical data to further elucidate their relationship with COPD. Findings suggest that HDAC9, DPP9 and KCNN4 are candidate targets of air pollutants that are potentially involved in COPD development. These results offer new insights into the potential molecular mechanisms linking air pollution exposure to COPD and underscore the need for further in-depth research on air pollution issues.