Abstract
BACKGROUND: The specific role of oxidative stress (OS) in vitiligo and alopecia areata (AA) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to analyze and identify the key markers of OS in vitiligo and AA by bioinformatics. METHODS: We obtained vitiligo and AA datasets from gene expression omnibus (GEO) database. The difference-expressed genes of vitiligo and AA were identified by differential analysis, and the functions of difference-expressed genes were identified by gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) enrichment analysis. Subsequently, Veen package was used to obtain the intersection genes of OS-related genes with vitiligo and AA. Finally, we used CIBERSORT to assess the infiltration of immune cells in vitiligo and AA. RESULTS: Through enrichment analysis, we found that vitiligo and AA were mainly enriched in cell cycle and cell adhesion molecular channels. We identified KLB and EIF3C as key genes in OS regulation of vitiligo and AA, and found that KLB and EIF3C participate in disease progression by regulating T cells and neutrophils. CONCLUSIONS: According to our findings, KLB and EIF3C play a crucial role in the progression and development of vitiligo and AA, which have been identified as biomarkers and target for early diagnosis of patients.