Network-Based Study Reveals Potential Infection Pathways of Hepatitis-C Leading to Various Diseases

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 4; p. e94029
• Main Authors: Mukhopadhyay, Anirban, Maulik, Ujjwal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 01.04.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Apoptosis; Biology and Life Sciences; Care and treatment; Computational Biology; Computer and Information Sciences; Computer applications; Computer networks; Computer science; Data Mining; Databases, Protein; Diagnosis; Disease; Diseases; Distribution; Gene Ontology; Genetic aspects; Health risk assessment; Hepacivirus - metabolism; Hepacivirus - physiology; Hepatitis; Hepatitis C; Hepatitis C - metabolism; Hepatitis C virus; Humans; Infections; Interferon; Liver cancer; Mass spectrometry; Medicine and health sciences; Nosocomial infections; Pathogenesis; Pathways; Physical Sciences; Protein interaction; Protein Interaction Maps; Proteins; Scientific imaging; Studies; Viral Proteins - metabolism; Viruses; West Bengal India; India
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094029

Protein-protein interaction network-based study of viral pathogenesis has been gaining popularity among computational biologists in recent days. In the present study we attempt to investigate the possible pathways of hepatitis-C virus (HCV) infection by integrating the HCV-human interaction network, human protein interactome and human genetic disease association network. We have proposed quasi-biclique and quasi-clique mining algorithms to integrate these three networks to identify infection gateway host proteins and possible pathways of HCV pathogenesis leading to various diseases. Integrated study of three networks, namely HCV-human interaction network, human protein interaction network, and human proteins-disease association network reveals potential pathways of infection by the HCV that lead to various diseases including cancers. The gateway proteins have been found to be biologically coherent and have high degrees in human interactome compared to the other virus-targeted proteins. The analyses done in this study provide possible targets for more effective anti-hepatitis-C therapeutic involvement.