Gene Expression Correlation for Cancer Diagnosis: A Pilot Study. (9th April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ling, Binbing; Chen, Lifeng; Liu, Qiang; Yang, Jian
• Other Names: Wu FangXiang Academic Editor.
• Is Part Of: BioMed research international. Volume 2014(2014)
• Publication Date: 2014-04-09
• Subjects: Medicine -- Periodicals; Biology -- Periodicals; Biotechnology -- Periodicals; Life sciences -- Periodicals; 610.5
• DOI: 10.1155/2014/253804
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2314-6133

Abstract

Abstract : Poor prognosis for late-stage, high-grade, and recurrent cancers has been motivating cancer researchers to search for more efficient biomarkers to identify the onset of cancer. Recent advances in constructing and dynamically analyzing biomolecular networks for different types of cancer have provided a promising novel strategy to detect tumorigenesis and metastasis. The observation of different biomolecular networks associated with normal and cancerous states led us to hypothesize that correlations for gene expressions could serve as valid indicators of early cancer development. In this pilot study, we tested our hypothesis by examining whether the mRNA expressions of three randomly selected cancer-related genes PIK3C3, PIM3, and PTEN were correlated during cancer progression and the correlation coefficients could be used for cancer diagnosis. Strong correlations ( 0.68 ≤ r ≤ 1.0 ) were observed between PIK3C3 and PIM3 in breast cancer, between PIK3C3 and PTEN in breast and ovary cancers, and between PIM3 and PTEN in breast, kidney, liver, and thyroid cancers during disease progression, implicating that the correlations for cancer network gene expressions could serve as a supplement to current clinical biomarkers, such as cancer antigens, for early cancer diagnosis.