Identification of Specific Modules and Hub microRNAs Related to Osteosarcoma by Weighted microRNA Co-Expression Network Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-670
Author(s):  
Mei Hanying ◽  
Yueling Zhao ◽  
Na Suo

Osteosarcoma (OS) is a malignant tumor with high morbidity and poor prognosis, especially for patients with metastasis. New therapeutic approaches are extremely needed. MicroRNAs can affect manykey biological processes, including the development and progression of complex diseases, such as OS. Here we identified specific modules and hub microRNAs related to OS through weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). A module consisting of 72 microRNAs were found to be highly related to OS and 22 of them have been reported as deregulatedmicroRNAs in OS patients which play a role in OS tumorigenesis, development or prognosis. Then the target genes of the microRNAs were predicted and the functional enrichment analysis was performed on these genes. This study will provide a more clear understanding for facilitating the characterization and identification of new biomarkers and treatment for patients with OS by targeted miRNA.

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Wang ◽  
Huaixin Zheng ◽  
Jiayu Zhang ◽  
Yashu Wang ◽  
Pingping Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Colorectal cancer (CRC) has been one of the most common malignancies worldwide, which tends to get worse for the growth and aging of the population and westernized lifestyle. However, there is no effective treatment due to the complexity of its etiology. Hence, the pathogenic mechanisms remain to be clearly defined. In the present study, we adopted an advanced analytical method—Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) to identify the key gene modules and hub genes associated with CRC. In total, five gene co-expression modules were highly associated with CRC, of which, one gene module correlated with CRC significantly positive (R = 0.88). Functional enrichment analysis of genes in primary gene module found metabolic pathways, which might be a potentially important pathway involved in CRC. Further, we identified and verified some hub genes positively correlated with CRC by using Cytoscape software and UALCAN databases, including PAICS, ATR, AASDHPPT, DDX18, NUP107 and TOMM6. The present study discovered key gene modules and hub genes associated with CRC, which provide references to understand the pathogenesis of CRC and may be novel candidate target genes of CRC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Yuntao Shi ◽  
Yingying Zhuang ◽  
Jialing Zhang ◽  
Mengxue Chen ◽  
Shangnong Wu

Objective. Although noncoding RNAs, especially the microRNAs, have been found to play key roles in CRC development in intestinal tissue, the specific mechanism of these microRNAs has not been fully understood. Methods. GEO and TCGA database were used to explore the microRNA expression profiles of normal mucosa, adenoma, and carcinoma. And the differential expression genes were selected. Computationally, we built the SVM model and multivariable Cox regression model to evaluate the performance of tumorigenic microRNAs in discriminating the adenomas from normal tissues and risk prediction. Results. In this study, we identified 20 miRNA biomarkers dysregulated in the colon adenomas. The functional enrichment analysis showed that MAPK activity and MAPK cascade were highly enriched by these tumorigenic microRNAs. We also investigated the target genes of the tumorigenic microRNAs. Eleven genes, including PIGF, TPI1, KLF4, RARS, PCBP2, EIF5A, HK2, RAVER2, HMGN1, MAPK6, and NDUFA2, were identified to be frequently targeted by the tumorigenic microRNAs. The high AUC value and distinct overall survival rates between the two risk groups suggested that these tumorigenic microRNAs had the potential of diagnostic and prognostic value in CRC. Conclusions. The present study revealed possible mechanisms and pathways that may contribute to tumorigenesis of CRC, which could not only be used as CRC early detection biomarkers, but also be useful for tumorigenesis mechanism studies.


Genes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wu ◽  
Lingxiang Wu ◽  
Mengyan Zhu ◽  
Ziyu Wang ◽  
Min Wu ◽  
...  

Somatic mutations in 3′-untranslated regions (3′UTR) do not alter amino acids and are considered to be silent in cancers. We found that such mutations can promote tumor progression by altering microRNA (miRNA) targeting efficiency and consequently affecting miRNA–mRNA interactions. We identified 67,159 somatic mutations located in the 3′UTRs of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) which can alter miRNA–mRNA interactions (functional somatic mutations, funcMutations), and 69.3% of these funcMutations (the degree of energy change > 12 kcal/mol) were identified to significantly promote loss of miRNA-mRNA binding. By integrating mRNA expression profiles of 21 cancer types, we found that the expression of target genes was positively correlated with the loss of absolute affinity level and negatively correlated with the gain of absolute affinity level. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that genes carrying funcMutations were significantly enriched in the MAPK and WNT signaling pathways, and analysis of regulatory modules identified eighteen miRNA modules involved with similar cellular functions. Our findings elucidate a complex relationship between miRNA, mRNA, and mutations, and suggest that 3′UTR mutations may play an important role in tumor development.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (s1) ◽  
pp. 111-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Comba ◽  
Patrick Dunn ◽  
Anna E Argento ◽  
Padma Kadiyala ◽  
Sebastien Motsch ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Oncostreams represent a novel growth pattern of GBM. In this study we uncovered the cellular and molecular mechanism that regulates the oncostreams function in GBM growth and invasion. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We studied oncostreams organization and function using genetically engineered mouse gliomas models (GEMM), mouse primary patient derived GBM model and human glioma biopsies. We evaluated the molecular landscape of oncostreams by laser capture microdissection (LCM) followed by RNA-Sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Oncostreams are multicellular structures of 10-20 cells wide and 2-400 μm long. They are distributed throughout the tumors in mouse and human GBM. Oncostreams are heterogeneous structures positive for GFAP, Nestin, Olig2 and Iba1 cells and negative for Neurofilament. Using GEMM we found a negative correlation between oncostream density and animal survival. Moreover, examination of patient’s glioma biopsies evidenced that oncostreams are present in high grade but no in low grade gliomas. This suggests that oncostreams may play a role in tumor malignancy. Our data also indicated that oncostreams aid local invasion of normal brain. Transcriptome analysis of oncostreams revealed 43 differentially expressed (DE) genes. Functional enrichment analysis of DE genes showed that “collagen catabolic processes”, “positive regulation of cell migration”, and “extracellular matrix organization” were the most over-represented GO biological process. Network analysis indicated that Col1a1, ACTA2, MMP9 and MMP10 are primary target genes. These genes were also overexpressed in more malignant tumors (WT-IDH) compared to the less malignant (IDH1- R132H) tumors. Confocal time lapse imagining of 3D tumor slices demonstrated that oncostreams display a collective motion pattern within gliomas that has not been seen before. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: In summary, oncostreams are anatomically and molecularly distinctive, regulate glioma growth and invasion, display collective motion and are regulated by the extracellular matrix. We propose oncostreams as novel pathological markers valuable for diagnosis, prognosis and designing therapeutics for GBM patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Yu Sun ◽  
Sheng-Hua Li ◽  
Ji-Wen Cheng ◽  
Gang Chen ◽  
Zhi-Guang Huang ◽  
...  

Background. The expression and mechanism of microRNA-205 (miRNA-205) in prostate cancer (PCa) and its bone metastasis remain controversial. Materials and Methods. The expression and discriminating capability of miRNA-205 were assessed by drawing a forest plot and a summarized receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve, using data available from 27 miRNA-array and miRNA-sequencing datasets. The miRNA-205 target genes were acquired from online prediction tools, differentially upregulated genes in PCa, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) after miRNA-205 transfection into PCa cell lines. Functional enrichment analysis was conducted to explore the biological mechanism of miRNA-205 targets. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was applied to verify the protein level of the hub gene. Results. The expression of miRNA-205 in the PCa group (1,461 samples) was significantly lower than that in the noncancer group (510 samples), and the downregulation of miRNA-205 showed excellent sensitivity and specificity in differentiating between the two groups. In bone metastatic PCa, the miRNA-205 level was further reduced than in nonbone metastatic PCa, and it showed a good capability in distinguishing between the two groups. In total, 153 miRNA-205 targets were screened through the three aforementioned methods. Based on the results of functional enrichment analysis, the targets of miRNA-205 were mainly enriched during chromosome segregation and phospholipid-translocating ATPase activity and in the spindle microtubule and the p53 signaling pathway. CDK1 had the highest connectivity in the PPI network analysis and was screened as one of the hub genes. A statistically significant negative correlation between miRNA-205 and CDK1 was observed. The expression of CDK1 in PCa samples was pronouncedly upregulated in terms of both the mRNA level and the protein level when compared with noncancer samples. Conclusion. miRNA-205 may play a vital role in PCa tumorigenesis and bone metastasis by targeting CDK1.


Biomolecules ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 417
Author(s):  
Chuanxi Peng ◽  
Xing Wang ◽  
Tianyu Feng ◽  
Rui He ◽  
Mingcai Zhang ◽  
...  

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), the post-transcriptional gene regulators, are known to play an important role in plant development. The identification of differentially expressed miRNAs could better help us understand the post-transcriptional regulation that occurs during maize internode elongation. Accordingly, we compared the expression of MIRNAs between fixed internode and elongation internode samples and classified six differentially expressed MIRNAs as internode elongation-responsive miRNAs including zma-MIR160c, zma-MIR164b, zma-MIR164c, zma-MIR168a, zma-MIR396f, and zma-MIR398b, which target mRNAs supported by transcriptome sequencing. Functional enrichment analysis for predictive target genes showed that these miRNAs were involved in the development of internode elongation by regulating the genes respond to hormone signaling. To further reveal how miRNA affects internode elongation by affecting target genes, the miRNA–mRNA–PPI (protein and protein interaction) network was constructed to summarize the interaction of miRNAs and these target genes. Our results indicate that miRNAs regulate internode elongation in maize by targeting genes related to cell expansion, cell wall synthesis, transcription, and regulatory factors.


Author(s):  
Mohit Jha ◽  
Anvita Gupta ◽  
Sudha Singh ◽  
Khushhali Menaria Pandey

Co-infection with tuberculosis (TB) is the preeminent cause of demise in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected individuals. However, diagnosis of TB, particularly in the presence of an HIV co-infection, can be limiting owing to the high inaccuracy associated with conventional diagnostic strategies. Here we determine dysregulated pathways in TB-HIV co-infection and HIV infection utilizing coexpression networks. Primarily, we utilized preservation statistics to identify gene modules that exhibit a weak conservation of network topology within HIV infected and TB-HIV co-infected networks. Raw data was downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE50834) and duly pre-processed. Co-expression networks for each condition (HIV infected and TB-HIV co-infected) were constructed independently. Preservation of HIV infected network edges was evaluated with respect to TB-HIV co-infected and vice versa using weighted correlation network analysis. Two out of the 22 modules were identified as exhibiting weak preservation in both conditions. Functional enrichment analysis identified that weakly preserved modules were pertinent to the condition under study. For instance, weakly preserved TBHIV co-infected module T1 enriched for genes associated with mitochondrion exhibited the highest fraction of gene interaction pairs exclusive to TB-HIV co-infection. Concisely, we illustrated the application of using preservation statistics to detect modules functionally linked with dysregulated pathways in disease, as exemplified by the mitochondrion module T1. Our analyses discovered gene clusters that are non-randomly linked with the disease. Highly specific gene pairs pointed to interactions between known markers of disease and favoured identification of possible markers that are likely to be associated with the disease.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Wei Xu ◽  
Jian Xu ◽  
Zhiqiang Wang ◽  
Yuequan Jiang

Objective. Esophageal cancer (ESCA) is one of the most aggressive malignancies globally with an undesirable five-year survival rate. Here, this study was conducted for determining specific functional genes linked with ESCA initiation and progression. Methods. Gene expression profiling of ESCA was curated from TCGA (containing 160 ESCA and 11 nontumor specimens) and GSE38129 (30 paired ESCA and nontumor tissues) datasets. Differential expression analysis was conducted between ESCA and nontumor tissues with adjusted p value <0.05 and |log2fold-change|>1. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) was conducted for determining the ESCA-specific coexpression modules and genes. Thereafter, ESCA-specific differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were intersected. Functional enrichment analysis was then presented with clusterProfiler package. Protein-protein interaction was conducted, and hub genes were determined. Association of hub genes with pathological staging was evaluated, and survival analysis was presented among ESCA patients. Results. This study determined 91 ESCA-specific DEGs following intersection of DEGs and ESCA-specific genes in TCGA and GSE38129 datasets. They were remarkably linked to cell cycle progression and carcinogenic pathways like the p53 signaling pathway, cellular senescence, and apoptosis. Ten ESCA-specific hub genes were determined, containing ASPM, BUB1B, CCNA2, CDC20, CDK1, DLGAP5, KIF11, KIF20 A, TOP2A, and TPX2. They were prominently associated with pathological staging. Among them, KIF11 upregulation was in relation to undesirable prognosis of ESCA patients. Conclusion. Collectively, we determined ESCA-specific coexpression modules and hub genes, which offered the foundation for future research concerning the mechanistic basis of ESCA.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
XU LIU ◽  
Li Yao ◽  
Jingkun Qu ◽  
Lin Liu ◽  
XU LIU ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Gastric cancer is a rather heterogeneous type of malignant tumor. Among the several classification system, Lauren classification can reflect biological and pathological differences of different gastric cancer.Method to provide systematic biological perspectives, we employ weighted gene co-expression network analysis to reveal transcriptomic characteristics of gastric cancer. GSE15459 and TCGA STAD dataset were downloaded. Co-expressional network was constructed and gene modules were identified. Result Two key modules blue and red were suggested to be associated with diffuse gastric cancer. Functional enrichment analysis of genes from the two modules was performed. Validating in TCGA STAD dataset, we propose 10 genes TNS1, PGM5, CPXM2, LIMS2, AOC3, CRYAB, ANGPTL1, BOC and TOP2A to be hub-genes for diffuse gastric cancer. Finally these ten genes were associated with gastric cancer survival. Conclusion More attention need to be paid and further experimental study is required to elucidate the role of these genes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haigang Cao ◽  
Jieming Liu ◽  
Tianning Du ◽  
Yihao Liu ◽  
Xiaoyu Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The myofiber type is related to the quality of meat; specifically, slow-oxidized myofiber helps to increase the tenderness and juiciness of meat. An increasing number of studies have shown that circRNAs play a key role in skeletal muscle development. However, the key circRNAs that regulate myofiber types and their roles are still poorly understood.Results: A total of 40757 circRNAs were identified from the longissimus dorsi (LD) and the soleus (Sol) muscles, of which 10388 were co-expressed in the two muscles. Further analysis found 181 differentially expressed circRNAs in the LD compared with Sol. Functional enrichment analysis showed that target genes of differentially expressed circRNA-sponge miRNAs were enriched in the AMPK, FoxO and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways. In addition, we focused on a novel circRNA—circMYLK4. CircMYLK4 significantly increased the mRNA and protein levels of slow muscle marker genes and caused the flesh to turn red.Conclusion: Our study laid an essential foundation for further research on circRNAs in myofiber type conversion and the achievement of higher meat quality.


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