XAF1 is identified as a novel hub gene and associated with the clinical characteristics of lupus nephritis

Background: Lupus nephritis (LN) is a severe complication of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) that is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality. At present, the definitive therapies towards LN remains to be elucidated, so illuminating the molecular mechanism behind the disease has become an urgent task for researchers. This study set out to screen the hub genes of LN. Methods The microarray expression profile dataset GSE32591 from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database with 15 normal and 32 LN samples was assessed in this study. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were conducted on the LN-related differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The Nephroseq database was performed to identify correlation analysis between unexplored hub genes and clinical features of LN. Additionally, the expression of the candidate genes was detected in the kidney tissue by immunohistochemistry. Results The 14 genes (13 upregulated and 1 downregulated) ultimately screened out as candidate hub genes of the pathogenesis of LN. Moreover, Correlation analysis between the unexplored hub genes and clinical features of LN suggested that XAF1 may involve in the progression of LN. Finally, our data demonstrated that the expression level of XAF1 was upregulated in LN compared with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) and related to the WHO Lupus Nephritis Class and the quantitative 24 h proteinuria of LN patients. Conclusions The current study proposed XAF1 as a novel hub gene in LN which may perform as a brand-new biomarker or therapeutic target of LN in the future.