Identification of hub gene for the pathogenic mechanism and diagnosis of MASLD by enhanced bioinformatics analysis and machine learning

Fig 1. Genes, modules, and pathways associated with MASLD. (A) Heatmap of significantly DEGs between normal and MASLD liver tissues. The color from blue to red represents the progression from low expression to high expression. (B) Volcano plot of differentially expressed genes between Normal and MASLD. The red dots in the plot represents upregulated genes and blue dots represents downregulated genes with statistical significance. Gray dots represent there is no differential expression in those genes. (C) Venn diagram of differentially expressed genes between Normal and MASLD. (D) WGCNA module plot of genes in MASLD. Each row represents a co-expression module. Each column represents a trait attribute. Blue color represents negative correlation and red color represents positive correlation. (E) KEGG pathways of DEGs. (F) Go analysis. The figure represents BP, CC and MF of DEGs. (G) The most significant enriched module in the PPI network.

Fig 2. Genes, modules, and pathways associated with MASH. (A) Venn diagram of DEGs with MASH. (B) Volcano plot of DEGs with MASH. The red dots in the plot represents upregulated genes and blue dots represents downregulated genes with statistical significance. Gray dots represent there is no differential expression in those genes. (C) Heatmap of significantly DEGs with MASH. The color from blue to red represents the progression from low expression to high expression. (D) Go analysis. The figure represents BP, CC and MF of the DEGs. (E) The most significant KEGG pathways of the DEGs. (F) Go analysis. The figure represents BP, CC and MF of the DEGs overlapped with those screened by correlation analysis. (G) The most significant KEGG pathways of DEGs overlapped with those screened by correlation analysis. (H) The most significant enriched module in the PPI network.

Fig 3. Genes, modules, and pathways associated with the fibrosis in MASLD. (A) Venn diagram of DEGs with the fibrosis. (B) Volcano plot of DEGs with the fibrosis. The red dots in the plot represents upregulated genes and blue dots represents downregulated genes with statistical significance. Gray dots represent no differentially expressed genes. (C) Heatmap of significantly DEGs with the fibrosis. The color from blue to red represents the progression from low expression to high expression. (D) The most significant KEGG pathways of DEGs. (E) Go analysis. The figure represents s BP, CC and MF of the DEGs overlapped with those screened by correlation analysis. (F) The most significant enriched module in the PPI network.

Fig 4. Diagnostic models for MASLD, MASH and fibrosis. (A) ROC curve of each single candidate gene for MASLD diagnosis. (B) ROC curve of each single candidate gene for MASH diagnosis. (C) ROC curve of each single candidate gene for fibrosis diagnosis. (D) ROC curves of models with combined candidate genes for MASLD, MASH and fibrosis diagnoses. (E) ROC curves of models with combined candidate genes for MASLD, MASH and fibrosis diagnoses in independent datasets.