Construction of a Protein-Protein Interaction Network for Chronic Myelocytic Leukemia and Pathway Prediction of Molecular Complexes

Abstract

<b>Background:</b> Chronic myelocytic leukemia is a disease that threatens both adults and children. Great progress has been achieved in treatment but protein-protein interaction networks underlining chronic myelocytic leukemia are less known. <br/><b>Objective</b>: To develop a protein-protein interaction network for chronic myelocytic leukemia based on gene expression and to predict biological pathways underlying molecular complexes in the network. Materials and <br/><b>Methods</b>: Genes involved in chronic myelocytic leukemia were selected from OMIM database. Literature mining was performed by Agilent Literature Search plugin and a protein-protein interaction network of chronic myelocytic leukemia was established by Cytoscape. The molecular complexes in the network were detected by Clusterviz plugin and pathway enrichment of molecular complexes were performed by DAVID online. Results and Discussion: There are seventy-nine chronic myelocytic leukemia genes in the Mendelian Inheritance In Man Database. The protein-protein interaction network of chronic myelocytic leukemia contained 638 nodes, 1830 edges and perhaps 5 molecular complexes. Among them, complex 1 is involved in pathways that are related to cytokine secretion, cytokine-receptor binding, cytokine receptor signaling, while complex 3 is related to biological behavior of tumors which can provide the bioinformatic foundation for further understanding the mechanisms of chronic myelocytic leukemia.