Cancer systems biology: exploring cancer-associated genes on cellular networks

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent systems biology approaches to understanding cancer-associated genes by integrating them into cellular networks, revealing their roles as network hubs and aiding in the identification of new cancer genes.

Contribution

It highlights the use of network integration, literature mining, and gene expression profiling to characterize cancer genes and discover new ones within cellular networks.

Findings

Cancer genes often act as network hub proteins.

Network analysis helps identify new cancer-associated genes.

Gene expression networks reveal regulators of cancer progression.

Abstract

Genomic alterations lead to cancer complexity and form a major hurdle for a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying oncogenesis. In this review, we describe the recent advances in studying cancer-associated genes from a systems biological point of view. The integration of known cancer genes onto protein and signaling networks reveals the characteristics of cancer genes within networks. This approach shows that cancer genes often function as network hub proteins which are involved in many cellular processes and form focal nodes in the information exchange between many signaling pathways. Literature mining allows constructing gene-gene networks, in which new cancer genes can be identified. The gene expression profiles of cancer cells are used for reconstructing gene regulatory networks. By doing so, the genes, which are involved in the regulation of cancer progression, can be picked up from these networks after which their functions can be further confirmed in the laboratory.