High-level integration of murine intestinal transcriptomics data highlights the importance of the complement system in mucosal homeostasis

Background: The mammalian intestine is a complex biological system that exhibits functional plasticity in its response to diverse stimuli to maintain homeostasis. To improve our understanding of this plasticity, we performed a high-level data integration of 14 whole-genome transcriptomics datasets from samples of intestinal mouse mucosa. We used the tool Centrality based Pathway Analysis (CePa), along with information from the Reactome database. Results: The results show an integrated response of the mouse intestinal mucosa to challenges with agents introduced orally that were expected to perturb homeostasis. We observed that a common set of pathways respond to different stimuli, of which the most reactive was the Regulation of Complement Cascade pathway. Altered expression of the Regulation of Complement Cascade pathway was verified in mouse organoids challenged with different stimuli in vitro. Conclusions: Results of the integrated transcriptomics analysis and data driven experiment suggest an important role of epithelial production of complement and host complement defence factors in the maintenance of homeostasis.