the main targets of okadaic acid toxin in human intestinal caco-2 cells: an investigation of biological systems

Background: okadaic acid (oa) is a toxin of polluted shellfish. consuming the contaminated shellfish is accompanied by diarrhea and paralytic and amnesic disorders. there is a correlation between diarrhea and the consumed oa. determining the critical targeted genes by oa was the aim of this study. methods: the transcriptomic data about the effect of oa on human intestinal caco-2 cells were extracted from gene expression omnibus (geo) and evaluated via the geo2r program. the significant differentially expressed genes (degs) were included in a protein-protein interaction (ppi) network and the central nodes were enriched via gene ontology to find the crucial affected biological terms. results: among the 178 significant degs plus 50 added first neighbors, four hub-bottleneck genes (alb, fos, jun, and myc) were determined. twenty-eight critical biological terms were identified as the dysregulated individuals in response to the presence of oa. “erk1/2-activator protein-1 (ap-1) complex binds kdm6b promoter” was highlighted as the major class of biological terms. conclusion: it can be concluded that down-regulation of alb as a potent central gene leads to impairment of blood homeostasis in the presence of oa. up-regulation of the other three central genes (jun, fos, and myc) grossly affects the vital pathways in the human body.