Stability of Imbalanced Triangles in Gene Regulatory Networks of Cancerous and Normal Cells

TL;DR

This study investigates the stability and distribution of imbalanced triangles in gene regulatory networks of normal and cancerous cells, revealing structural differences that may relate to cancer pathology.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of imbalanced triangles in gene regulatory networks, highlighting their differing roles and stability in cancerous versus normal cells.

Findings

Fewer imbalanced triangles in cancerous cell networks.

Imbalanced triangles are isolated in normal cells but integrated in cancerous cells.

Structural differences in gene networks may influence cancer development.

Abstract

Genes communicate with each other through different regulatory effects, which lead to the emergence of complex structures in cells, and such structures are expected to be different for normal and cancerous cells. To study breast cancer differences, we have investigated the Gene Regulatory Network (GRN) of cells as inferred from RNA-sequencing data. The GRN is a signed weighted network corresponding to the inductive or inhibitory interactions. Here we focus on a particular of motifs in the GRN, the triangles, which are imbalanced if the number of negative interactions are odd. By studying the stability of imbalanced triangles in the GRN, we show that the network of cancerous cells has fewer imbalanced triangles compared to normal. Moreover, in the normal cells, imbalanced triangles are isolated from the main part of the network, while such motifs are part of the network's giant component in cancerous cells. Our result demonstrates that due to genes' collective behavior the complex structures are different in cancerous cells from those in normal ones.