Predicting Hub Genes Associated with Cervical Cancer through Gene Co-Expression Networks

• Published in: IEEE/ACM transactions on computational biology and bioinformatics Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 27 - 35
• Main Authors: Deng, Su-Ping, Zhu, Lin, Huang, De-Shuang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.01.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Bioinformatics; Cervical cancer; co-expression network; Computational Biology; differentially expressed genes; Female; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic - genetics; Gene Regulatory Networks - genetics; hub genes; Human papillomavirus; Humans; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms - genetics; differentially expressed genes; hub genes; Cervical cancer; co-expression network
• ISSN: 1545-5963; 1557-9964
• DOI: 10.1109/TCBB.2015.2476790

Cervical cancer is the third most common malignancy in women worldwide. It remains a leading cause of cancer-related death for women in developing countries. In order to contribute to the treatment of the cervical cancer, in our work, we try to find a few key genes resulting in the cervical cancer. Employing functions of several bioinformatics tools, we selected 143 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with the cervical cancer. The results of bioinformatics analysis show that these DEGs play important roles in the development of cervical cancer. Through comparing two differential co-expression networks (DCNs) at two different states, we found a common sub-network and two differential sub-networks as well as some hub genes in three sub-networks. Moreover, some of the hub genes have been reported to be related to the cervical cancer. Those hub genes were analyzed from Gene Ontology function enrichment, pathway enrichment and protein binding three aspects. The results can help us understand the development of the cervical cancer and guide further experiments about the cervical cancer.