Objective To explore the relationship between PANoptosis and hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (HIRI), and to screen the key genes of PANoptosis in HIRI.

Methods PANoptosis-related differentially expressed genes (PDG) were obtained through the Gene Expression Omnibus database and GeneCards database. Gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) were used to explore the biological pathways related to PDG. A protein-protein interaction network was constructed. Key genes were selected, and their diagnostic value was assessed and validated in the liver tissues of HIRI mice. Immune cell infiltration analysis was performed based on the cell-type identification by estimating relative subsets of RNA transcripts.

Results A total of 16 PDG were identified. GO analysis showed that PDG were closely related to cellular metabolism, KEGG analysis indicated that PDG were mainly enriched in cellular death pathways such as apoptosis and immune-related signaling pathways such as the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling pathway. GSEA results showed that key genes were mainly enriched in immune-related signaling pathways such as the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. Two key genes, DFFB and TNFSF10, were identified with high accuracy in diagnosing HIRI, with areas under the curve of 0.964 and 1.000, respectively. Cibersort analysis showed that the infiltration abundance of naive B cells was positively correlated with DFFB expression (r=0.7, P=0.035), and the infiltration abundance of M2 macrophages was positively correlated with TNFSF10 expression (r=0.68, P=0.045).

Conclusions PANoptosis-related genes DFFB and TNFSF10 may be potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for HIRI.