Network Visualization Analysis on MicroRNAs in Infectious Diseases Research Area

The discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs) has revealed a new level in gene expression post-transcriptional control. Several studies have been published to date looking at the relationship between miRNAs and viral (swine flu, HIV, and hepatitis B) or bacterial infections. We conducted a bibliometric evaluation of the existing literature on miRNAs in the infectious disease research area. The major purpose of this study was to investigate the significance of publications and identify research developments and clusters using bibliometric methods.

Data was obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The titles, document types, publication years, authors, affiliations, keywords, publishing journals, abstracts of each document, and citations within the WoS database were saved as TXT files and retrieved into Microsoft Office Excel 2019. Data for this investigation was obtained from the WoS database on 10 April 2022. The WoS database's Results Analysis and Citation Report were used to analyze the number of publications from various viewpoints, such as years, journals, and authors. To visualize country collaboration networks and keywords we used the VOSviewer software version 1.6.18 for Microsoft Windows.

We found 623 documents of which 251 (40.3%) were articles. All the publications were published in English. The first document was published in 2007, and the maximum number of documents was published in 2021. The number of documents has been increasing since 2019. China dominated the scientific production with 398 (63.9%) publications. The top five leading scientifically productive countries on this topic also included the USA (n = 100; 16.1%), Japan (n = 24; 3.9%), Germany (n = 20; 3.2%), and Italy (n = 17; 2.7%). The documents originating from China were cited 5705 times (an average of 14.3/document). The documents originating from the USA were cited 2190 times (an average of 21.9/document).

Since 2019, the number of studies on miRNA in infectious illnesses has steadily increased. China and the USA have made tremendous contributions to this field's study. We discovered several deregulated miRNAs, including miR-122, miR-133a, miR-146, miR-155, and miR-370, were described in the context of sepsis and infection using bibliometric methods. Understanding these crucial factors, as well as how research is performed and directed, might lead to a new perspective in the creation of new strategies to manage variable infections in the coming years.