The protein-protein interaction network of intestinal gastric cancer patients reveals hub proteins with potential prognostic value

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Everton Cruz Santos ◽  
Renata Binato Gomes ◽  
Priscila Valverde Fernandes ◽  
Maria Aparecida Ferreira ◽  
Eliana Saul Furquim Werneck Abdelhay

BACKGROUND: Gastric cancer (GC) is the third leading cause of cancer worldwide. According to the Lauren classification, gastric adenocarcinoma is divided into two subtypes: diffuse and intestinal. The development of intestinal gastric cancer (IGC) can take years and involves multiple factors. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the protein profile of tumor samples from patients with IGC in comparison with adjacent nontumor tissue samples. METHODS: We used label-free nano-LC-MS/MS to identify proteins from the tissues samples. The results were analyzed using MetaCore™ software to access functional enrichment information. Protein-protein interactions (PPI) were predicted using STRING analysis. Hub proteins were determined using the Cytoscape plugin, CytoHubba. Survival analysis was performed using KM plotter. We identified 429 differentially expressed proteins whose pathways and processes were related to protein folding, apoptosis, and immune response. RESULTS: The PPI network of these proteins showed enrichment modules related to the regulation of cell death, immune system, neutrophil degranulation, metabolism of RNA and chromatin DNA binding. From the PPI network, we identified 20 differentially expressed hub proteins, and assessed the prognostic value of the expression of genes that encode them. Among them, the expression of four hub genes was significantly associated with the overall survival of IGC patients. CONCLUSIONS: This study reveals important findings that affect IGC development based on specific biological alterations in IGC patients. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the pathogenesis of IGC patients is complex and involves different interconnected biological processes. These findings may be useful in research on new targets to develop novel therapies to improve the overall survival of patients with IGC.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Wang ◽  
Pengyi Yu ◽  
Judong Luo ◽  
Zhiqiang Sun ◽  
Jingping Yu ◽  
...  

Neo-chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) before surgery is a standard treatment for locally advanced esophageal cancers. However, the treatment outcome of nCRT varied with different patients. This study aimed to identify potential biomarkers for prediction of nCRT-response in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Microarray datasets of nCRT responder and non-responder samples (access number GSE45670 and GSE59974) of patients with ESCC were downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The mRNA expression profiles of cancer biopsies from four ESCC patients were analyzed before and after nCRT. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and miRNAs were screened between nCRT responder and non-responder ESCC samples. Functional enrichment analysis was conducted for these DEGs followed by construction of protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and miRNA-mRNA regulatory network. Finally, univariate survival analysis was performed to identify candidate biomarkers with prognostic values in ESCC. We identified numerous DEGs and differentially expressed miRNAs from nCRT responder group. GO and KEGG analysis showed that the dysregulated genes were mainly involved in biological processes and pathways, including “response to stimulus”, “cellular response to organic substance”, “regulation of signal transduction”, “AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications”, and “steroid hormone biosynthesis”. After integration of PPI network and miRNA-mRNA network analysis, we found eight genes, TNF, AKR1C1, AKR1C2, ICAM1, GPR68, GNB4, SERPINE1 and MMP12, could be candidate genes associated with disease progression. Univariate cox regression analysis showed that there was no significant correlation between dysregulated miRNAs (such as hsa-miR-34b-3p, hsa-miR-127-5p, hsa-miR-144-3p, and hsa-miR-486-5p, et al.) and overall survival of ESCC patients. Moreover, abnormal expression of MMP12 was significantly correlated with pathological degree, TNM stage, lymph nodes metastasis, and overall survival of ESCC patients (p < 0.05). Taken together, our study identified that MMP12 might be a useful tumor biomarker and therapeutic target for ESCC.


Author(s):  
Christoph Stingl ◽  
Angela Bureo Gonzalez ◽  
Coşkun Güzel ◽  
Kai Yi Nadine Phoa ◽  
Michail Doukas ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Barrett’s esophagus (BE) is a known precursor lesion and the strongest risk factor for esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), a common and lethal type of cancer. Prediction of risk, the basis for efficient intervention, is commonly solely based on histologic examination. This approach is challenged by problems such as inter-observer variability in the face of the high heterogeneity of dysplastic tissue. Molecular markers might offer an additional way to understand the carcinogenesis and improve the diagnosis—and eventually treatment. In this study, we probed significant proteomic changes during dysplastic progression from BE into EAC. Methods During endoscopic mucosa resection, epithelial and stromal tissue samples were collected by laser capture microdissection from 10 patients with normal BE and 13 patients with high-grade dysplastic/EAC. Samples were analyzed by mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis. Expressed proteins were determined by label-free quantitation, and gene set enrichment was used to find differentially expressed pathways. The results were validated by immunohistochemistry for two selected key proteins (MSH6 and XPO5). Results Comparing dysplastic/EAC to non-dysplastic BE, we found in equal volumes of epithelial tissue an overall up-regulation in terms of protein abundance and diversity, and determined a set of 226 differentially expressed proteins. Significantly higher expressions of MSH6 and XPO5 were validated orthogonally and confirmed by immunohistochemistry. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that disease-related proteomic alterations can be determined by analyzing minute amounts of cell-type-specific collected tissue. Further analysis indicated that alterations of certain pathways associated with carcinogenesis, such as micro-RNA trafficking, DNA damage repair, and spliceosome activity, exist in dysplastic/EAC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng Zheng ◽  
Zizhen Zhang ◽  
Ning Ding ◽  
Jiawei Sun ◽  
Yifeng Lin ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Angiogenesis is a key factor in promoting tumor growth, invasion and metastasis. In this study we aimed to investigate the prognostic value of angiogenesis-related genes (ARGs) in gastric cancer (GC). Methods mRNA sequencing data with clinical information of GC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. The differentially expressed ARGs between normal and tumor tissues were analyzed by limma package, and then prognosis‑associated genes were screened using Cox regression analysis. Nine angiogenesis genes were identified as crucially related to the overall survival (OS) of patients through least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. The prognostic model and corresponding nomograms were establish based on 9 ARGs and verified in in both TCGA and GEO GC cohorts respectively. Results Eighty-five differentially expressed ARGs and their enriched pathways were confirmed. Significant enrichment analysis revealed that ARGs-related signaling pathway genes were highly related to tumor angiogenesis development. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that patients in the high-risk group had worse OS rates compared with the low-risk group in training cohort and validation cohort. In addition, RS had a good prognostic effect on GC patients with different clinical features, especially those with advanced GC. Besides, the calibration curves verified fine concordance between the nomogram prediction model and actual observation. Conclusions We developed a nine gene signature related to the angiogenesis that can predict overall survival for GC. It’s assumed to be a valuable prognosis model with high efficiency, providing new perspectives in targeted therapy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wu Song ◽  
Yujie Yuan ◽  
Liang Wang ◽  
Weiling He ◽  
Xinhua Zhang ◽  
...  

Objective.The study was designed to explore the prognostic value of examined lymph node (LN) number on survival of gastric cancer patients without LN metastasis.Methods.Between August 1995 and January 2011, 300 patients who underwent gastrectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy for LN-negative gastric cancer were reviewed. Patients were assigned to various groups according to LN dissection number or tumor invasion depth. Some clinical outcomes, such as overall survival, operation time, length of stay, and postoperative complications, were compared among all groups.Results.The overall survival time of LN-negative GC patients was50.2±30.5months. Multivariate analysis indicated that LN dissection number(P<0.001)and tumor invasion depth(P<0.001)were independent prognostic factors of survival. The number of examined LNs was positively correlated with survival time(P<0.05)in patients with same tumor invasion depth but not correlated with T1 stage or examined LNs>30. Besides, it was not correlated with operation time, transfusion volume, length of postoperative stay, or postoperative complication incidence(P>0.05).Conclusions.The number of examined lymph nodes is an independent prognostic factor of survival for patients with lymph node-negative gastric cancer. Sufficient dissection of lymph nodes is recommended during surgery for such population.


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoming Zhang ◽  
Jing Zhuang ◽  
Lijuan Liu ◽  
Zhengguo He ◽  
Cun Liu ◽  
...  

Background Cumulative evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in tumorigenesis. This study aims to identify lncRNAs that can serve as new biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis or screening. Methods First, the linear fitting method was used to identify differentially expressed genes from the breast cancer RNA expression profiles in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Next, the diagnostic value of all differentially expressed lncRNAs was evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Then, the top ten lncRNAs with the highest diagnostic value were selected as core genes for clinical characteristics and prognosis analysis. Furthermore, core lncRNA-mRNA co-expression networks based on weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) were constructed, and functional enrichment analysis was performed using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID). The differential expression level and diagnostic value of core lncRNAs were further evaluated by using independent data set from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Finally, the expression status and prognostic value of core lncRNAs in various tumors were analyzed based on Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA). Results Seven core lncRNAs (LINC00478, PGM5-AS1, AL035610.1, MIR143HG, RP11-175K6.1, AC005550.4, and MIR497HG) have good single-factor diagnostic value for breast cancer. AC093850.2 has a prognostic value for breast cancer. AC005550.4 and MIR497HG can better distinguish breast cancer patients in early-stage from the advanced-stage. Low expression of MAGI2-AS3, LINC00478, AL035610.1, MIR143HG, and MIR145 may be associated with lymph node metastasis in breast cancer. Conclusion Our study provides candidate biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer, as well as a bioinformatics basis for the further elucidation of the molecular pathological mechanism of breast cancer.


PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e10470
Author(s):  
Wanzhen Li ◽  
Shiqing Liu ◽  
Shihong Su ◽  
Yang Chen ◽  
Gengyun Sun

MicroRNA (miRNA, miR) has been reported to be highly implicated in a wide range of biological processes in lung cancer (LC), and identification of differentially expressed miRNAs between normal and LC samples has been widely used in the discovery of prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) and response to therapy. The present study was designed to develop and evaluate a miRNA-based signature with prognostic value for the OS of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), a common histologic subtype of LC. In brief, the miRNA expression profiles and clinicopathological factors of 499 LUAD patients were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Kaplan–Meier (K-M) survival analysis showed significant correlations between differentially expressed miRNAs and LUAD survival outcomes. Afterward, 1,000 resample LUAD training matrices based on the training set was applied to identify the potential prognostic miRNAs. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) cox regression analysis was used to constructed a six-miRNA based prognostic signature for LUAD patients. Samples with different risk scores displayed distinct OS in K-M analysis, indicating considerable predictive accuracy of this signature in both training and validation sets. Furthermore, time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated the nomogram achieved higher predictive accuracy than any other clinical variables after incorporating the clinical information (age, sex, stage, and recurrence). In the stratification analysis, the prognostic value of this classifier in LUAD patients was validated to be independent of other clinicopathological variables, such as age, gender, tumor recurrence, and early stage. Gene set annotation analyses were also conducted through the Hallmark gene set and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways, indicating target genes of the six miRNAs were positively related to various molecular pathways of cancer, such as hallmark UV response, Wnt signaling pathway and mTOR signaling pathway. In addition, fresh cancer tissue samples and matched adjacent tissue samples from 12 LUAD patients were collected to verify the expression of miR-582’s target genes in the model, further revealing the potential relationship between SOX9, RASA1, CEP55, MAP4K4 and LUAD tumorigenesis, and validating the predictive value of the model. Taken together, the present study identified a robust signature for the OS prediction of LUAD patients, which could potentially aid in the individualized selection of therapeutic approaches for LUAD patients.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nana Yang ◽  
Qianghua Wang ◽  
Biao Ding ◽  
Yinging Gong ◽  
Yue Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The accumulation of ROS resulting from upregulated levels of oxidative stress is commonly implicated in preeclampsia (PE). Ferroptosis is a novel form of iron-dependent cell death instigated by lipid peroxidation likely plays important role in PE pathogenesis. This study aims to investigate expression profiles and functions of the ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) in early- and late-onset preeclampsia.Methods: The gene expression data and clinical information were downloaded from GEO database. The “limma” R package was used for screening differentially expressed genes. GO(Gene Ontology), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG) and protein protein interaction (PPI) network analyses were conducted to investigate the bioinformatics functions and molecular interactions of significantly different FRGs. Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase PCR was used to verify the expression of hub FRGs in PE.Results: A total number of 4,215 DEGs were identified between EOPE and preterm cases and 3,356 DEGs were found between EOPE and LOPE subtypes. 20 significantly different FRGs were identified in EOPE, while only 3 in LOPE. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that the differentially expressed FRGs was mainly involved in EOPE and enriched in hypoxia- and iron-related pathways, such as response to hypoxia, iron homeostasis and iron ion binding process. The PPI network analysis and verification by RT-qPCR resulted in the identification of the following six interesting FRGs: FTH1, HIF1A, FTL, IREB2, MAPK8 and PLIN2. Conclusions: EOPE and LOPE owned distinct underlying molecular mechanisms and ferroptosis may be mainly implicated in pathogenesis of EOPE. Further studies are necessary for deeper inquiry into placental ferroptosis and its role in the pathogenesis of EOPE.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiyuan Huang ◽  
He Wang ◽  
Min Liu ◽  
Xinrui Li ◽  
Lei Zhu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: It has been demonstrated by studies globally that autophagy took part in the development of cervical cancer (CC). Few studies concentrated on the correlation between overall survival and CC patients. We retrieved significant autophagy-related genes (ARGs) correlated to the process of cervical cancer. They may be used as prognosis marker or treatment target for clinical application.Methods: Expressions level of genes in cervical cancer and normal tissue samples were obtained from GTEx and TCGA database. Autophagy-related genes (ARGs) were retrieved accroding to the gene list from HaDB. Differentially expressed autophagy related genes (DE-ARGs) related to cervical cancer were identified by Wilcoxon signed-rank test. ClusterProfiler package worked in R software was used to perform GO and KEGG enrichment analyses. Univariate propotional hazard cox regression and multivariate propotional hazard cox regressions were applied to identify DE-ARGs equipped with prognostic value and other clinical independent risk factors. ROC curve was drawn for comparing the survival predict feasibility of risk score with other risk factors in CC patients. Nomogram was drawn to exhibit the prediction model constructed accroding to multivariate cox regression. Correlations between Differentially expressed autophagy related genes (DE-ARGs) and other clinical features were investigated by t test or Cruskal wallis analysis. Correlation between Immune and autophagy in cervical cancer was investigated by ssGSEA and TIMER database. Results: Fifty-six differentially expressed ARGs (DE-ARGs) were retrieved from cervical cancer tissue and normal tissue samples. GO enrichment analysis showed that these ARGs involved in autophagy, ubiquitination of protein and apoptosis. Cox regression medel showed that there were six ARGs significantly associated with overall survival of cervical caner patients. VAMP7 (HR = 0.599, P= 0.033) and TP73 (HR = 0.671, P= 0.014) played protective roles in survival among these six genes. Stage (Stage IV vs Stage I HR = 3.985, P<0.001) and risk score (HR = 1.353, P< 0.001) were sorted as independent prognostic risk factors based on multivariate cox regression. ROC curve validated that risk score was preferable to predict survival of CC patients than other risk factors. Additionally, we found some of these six predictor ARGs were correlated significantly in statistic with tumor grade or stage, clinical T stage, clinical N stage, pathology or risk score (all P< 0.05). The immune cells and immune functions showed a lower activity in high risk group than low risk group which is distincted by median risk score. Conclusion: Our discovery showed that autophagy genes involved in the progress of cervical cancer. Many autophagy-related genes could probably serve as prognostic biomarkers and accelerate the discovery of treatment targets for CC patients.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Wang ◽  
Zihan Zheng ◽  
Qinghua Cao ◽  
Xiufen Liu ◽  
Zhiqing Wang

Abstract Backgroud Obg-like ATPase 1 (OLA1) is a member of the Obg family of P-loop NTPases and has recently been detected in several human cancer cells. However, its expression type and clinical relevance in gastric cancer remains unclear. Methods In the present study, 2 datasets downloaded from the open Gene Expression Omnibus database were used to evaluate the mRNA level of OLA1 in gastric cancer. Quantitative Reverse Transcription PCR further validated the mRNA expression in gastric cancer tissues. Immunohistochemistry was performed on gastric cancer tissue microarray to assess OLA1 protein expression type, prognostic value, biological significance and its association with Snail in 334 patients of gastric cancer. The prognostic value of combination of OLA1 and Snail has been evaluated. Results The results showed that OLA1 mRNA and protein were elevated in gastric cancer tissues. High expression of OLA1 was significantly associated with aggressive features, such as tumor size, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage (P = 0.0146, P = 0.0037, P < 0.001, respectively). Moreover, high levels of OLA1 predicted worse overall survival. Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that high expression of OLA1 was an independent prognostic factor for poor overall survival (hazard ratio, 0.573; 95% confidence interval, 0.376–0.872; P = 0.009). Additionally, OLA1 expression was positively correlated with Snail, and combination of them revealed improved prognostic accuracy for gastric cancer patients. Conclusions Our results suggested that OLA1 high expression was considered as an independent factor for the prediction of unfavorable prognosis in gastric cancer patients, and we believe that OLA1 could serve as a biomarker of poor prognosis and a novel target in treating gastric cancers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 030006051988726
Author(s):  
Yuting Zhang ◽  
Bo Shen ◽  
Liya Zhuge ◽  
Yong Xie

Objective We aimed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEG) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Methods RNA-seq data were obtained from the Array Express database. DEG were identified using the edgeR package. A co-expression network was constructed and key modules with the highest correlation with IBD inflammatory sites were identified for analysis. The Cytoscape MCODE plugin was used to identify key sub-modules of the protein–protein interaction (PPI) network. The genes in the sub-modules were considered hub genes, and functional enrichment analysis was performed. Furthermore, we constructed a drug–gene interaction network. Finally, we visualized the hub gene expression pattern between the colon and ileum of IBD using the ggpubr package and analyzed it using the Wilcoxon test. Results DEG were identified between the colon and ileum of IBD patients. Based on the co-expression network, the green module had the highest correlation with IBD inflammatory sites. In total, 379 DEG in the green module were identified for the PPI network. Nineteen hub genes were differentially expressed between the colon and ileum. The drug–gene network identified these hub genes as potential drug targets. Conclusion Nineteen DEG were identified between the colon and ileum of IBD patients.


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