Identification Of Biomarkers In Colon Adenocarcinoma Based On Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis

Colorectal cancer is a kind of cancer with high fatality rate,and colon adenocarcinoma is its most common pathological subtype.With the advent of the postgenomic era,more and more bioinformatics tools have been applied in cancer research,especially the identification and screening of tumor biomarkers,which can help understand the pathogenesis of cancer and guide diagnosis and treatment.Based on this,bioinformatics methods such as weighted gene co-expression network analysis,differential expression gene analysis,enrichment analysis and survival analysis are used to analyze the transcriptome data of colon adenocarcinoma,and to explore the biomarkers and related endogenous factors related to cell cycle in the occurrence and development of colon adenocarcinoma.Aiming at 11035 genes in 639 colon adenocarcinoma samples in TCGA and GTEx databases,weighted gene co-expression network analysis is used to construct the gene co-expression network and divide it into 10 different co-expression modules.Four important modules related to the development and progression of colon adenocarcinoma are identified by the correlation coefficient of module characteristics.Seven cell cycle genes: CDC45,EREG,PBK,TOP2 A,PER1,SNCG,and NGFR,are identified as biomarkers for colon adenocarcinoma by differential gene expression analysis,enrichment analysis,and survival analysis.In order to search for endogenous factors such as growth factors and hormones associated with colon adenocarcinoma,we screened out a gene set with both coexpression and regulatory relationships based on the co-expression network constructed by weighted gene co-expression network analysis and the regulatory network constructed by GENIE3,including 5 cell cycle genes: CDC45,PBK,PER1,TOP2 A,SNCG,and 9receptor genes: ACKR1,FGFR2,GPR146,IL11 RA,ITGA2,LPAR1,LYVE1,NPR1,and OLFM1.Through the protein-protein interaction network constructed by these 14 genes,an important receptor gene(NPR1)is inferred.In addition,NGFR itself is a receptor.Based on the relevant properties of receptors,we inferred that ANP,BNP and NGF may be endogenous factors inducing the development of colon adenocarcinoma.The conclusion of this study provides data support for exploring the pathogenesis of colon adenocarcinoma.