Abstract
Background: Ovarian cancer is a common cancer that affects the quality of women’s life. With the limitation of the early diagnosis of the disease, ovarian cancer has a high mortality rate worldwide. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor invasion, proliferation, and metastasis in ovarian cancer remain unclear. We aimed to identify, using bioinformatics, important genes and pathways that may serve crucial roles in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of ovarian cancer. Methods: Three microarray datasets (GSE14407, GSE36668, and GSE26712) were selected for whole-genome gene expression profiling , and differentially expressed genes were identified between normal and ovarian cancer tissues. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses were performed using DAVID. Additionally, a protein-protein interaction network was constructed to reveal possible interactions among the differently expressed genes. The prognostic values of the hub genes were investigated using Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) and the KM plotter database. Meanwhile, the mRNA expression analysis of the hub genes was performed using the GEPIA database. Results: We obtained 247 upregulated and 530 downregulated differently expressed genes, and 52 hub genes in the significant gene modules. Enrichment analysis revealed that the hub genes were significantly ( P < 0.05) associated with proliferation. Additionally, BIRC5, CXCL13, and PBK were revealed to be significantly associated with the clinical prognosis of patients with ovarian cancer. Immunohistochemical staining results obtained from the Human Protein Atlas revealed that BIRC5, PBK, and CXCL13 were highly expressed in ovaria cancer tissues. Conclusion Three-gene signatures ( BIRC5, CXCL13 , and PBK ) are associated with the occurrence, development, and prognosis of OC, and may therefore serve as biological markers of the disease.
Cancer gene expression database (CGED): a database for gene expression profiling with accompanying clinical information of human cancer tissues
