ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1519216
This article is part of the Research TopicTuberculosis: Recent Updates in Basic Research, Drug Discovery and TreatmentView all 7 articles
Investigation of the relationship between chronic hepatitis B and tuberculosis using bioinformatics and systems biology approaches
Provisionally accepted
- 1Center of Infectious Diseases, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Division of Liver Surgery, Department of General Surgery and Laboratory of Liver Surgery, and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 3College of Life Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a globally prevalent pathogen that poses significant public health challenges. Active HBV replication can trigger immune responses that result in liver damage. Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), remains one of the leading causes of death from a single infectious agent worldwide. Notably, in TB patients with HBV infection and, the incidence of adverse events is six times higher than in those with TB alone, and HBV infection increases the risk of latent TB. However, the relationship between HBV and TB have not been thoroughly investigated.To elucidate the relationship between HBV and TB, we performed an integrated bioinformatics analysis using expression profiling and RNA sequencing data from the GSE83148 and GSE126614 datasets. We identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with both diseases and analyzed shared biological pathways, key genes, transcriptional regulatory networks, and gene-disease associations.Furthermore, we predicted potential therapeutic agents targeting these shared molecular features.Results: A total of 35 overlapping DEGs were identified for in-depth analysis.Functional enrichment revealed that these genes are involved in both immune-related pathways and cellular metabolic regulation, underscoring their potential role in the progression of HBV and TB. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis highlighted four hub genes: CCL2, CD69, EGR2, and CCL20. Additionally, 35 transcription factors (TFs) were predicted to regulate these hub genes. Several candidate drugs, including etoposide, 8-azaguanine, menaquinone, emetine and Nacetyl-L-cysteine, were identified as potential therapeutic options. The DEGs were also significantly associated with other conditions such as pneumonia.This study provides novel insights into the relationship between HBV and TB, offering potential targets for diagnosis and treatment. Our findings may contribute to the development of integrated strategies to manage HBV infection and TB more effectively.
Keywords: Hepatitis B virus, Tuberculosis, Differentially expressed genes, proteinprotein network (PPI), Hub gene, Drug molecule
Received: 29 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Zhou, Zhang, Cai, Pan, Huang and H E. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tengda Huang, Division of Liver Surgery, Department of General Surgery and Laboratory of Liver Surgery, and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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