Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate how well the ligature-induced periodontitis mouse model reflects the transcriptomic features of human periodontitis and to identify periodontitis-associated genes and functions con-served across species.Materials and Methods: RNA sequencing data from human and mouse gingival tissues were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using DESeq2. Func-tional enrichment analysis was performed using Gene Ontology and KEGG pathway databases. Cross-species transcriptomic similarity was evaluated by comparing DEG overlap and enrichment similarity between human and mouse.Results: A total of 223 human DEGs and 622 mouse DEGs were identified. Among these, 25 DEGs were shared between species, including 23 showing concordant regulation direction. The mouse-to-human overlap ratio was 3.70%. Functional enrichment analysis identified 189 significant terms or pathways in humans and 602 in mice, with 129 shared results. Specifically, 41.18% of mouse KEGG pathway results overlapped with human results. The shared concordant genes, including IL-1β, PTGS2 (also known as COX-2), and MMP13, were associated with im-mune and inflammatory functions.Conclusion: The ligature-induced periodontitis mouse model reflects the transcriptomic features of human peri-odontitis in a limited manner, showing low similarity at the DEG level and moderate similarity at the enrichment level. Conserved DEGs such as IL-1β, PTGS2, and MMP13 may represent fundamental molecular mechanisms of periodontitis. (J Korean Dent Assoc 2025; 63(10): 322-328)