Analyses of the Dual Immune Roles Cytokines Play in Ischemic Stroke

Stroke is one of the leading causes of morbidity and permanent disability worldwide. There is a need for an efficacious alternative therapy administered beyond the limitation of time window based on the biological characteristics of stroke, currently. The immunomodulatory therapy could extend the time window while not increase the risk of hemorrhage which made it become candidate treatments. In this paper, we integrated several gene expression profiles generated from the peripheral blood of ischemic stroke patients and health people. Differential expressed cytokines were first selected as candidate cytokines. Enrichment analyses were then performed to filter the candidate cytokines as biomarkers (E-CKs) by checking the relationships between them and the stroke related functional terms. More cytokines were found as biomarkers in the sub-acute stage of ischemic stroke compared with acute and chronic stages which could be explained by the great changes in microenvironment in this necrosis stage. Analyses based on microRNomics level showed that more E-CKs one miRNA regulated, the more important role it played in stroke related processes. Similarly, analyses on proteomics level showed that E-CKs with top degrees in the protein-protein interaction network were proved to be closely related to stroke. Most E-CKs participate in both the stroke processing and rehabilitation, thus, the dual immune characters made them become valuable potential targets of immunomodulatory therapies.