CENPL, ISG20L2, LSM4 and MRPL3 Are Four Novel Hub Genes Involved in Breast Cancer Development and Progression

Abstract

BackgroundAs a highly prevalent tumor disease worldwide, Further elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of the occurrence, development and prognosis of breast cancer remain an urgent need. Identifying hub genes involved in these pathogenesis and progression can potentially help to unveil its mechanism and provide novel diagnostic and prognostic markers for breast cancer.MethodsIn this study, we systematically integrated multiple bioinformatic methods, including robust rank aggregation (RRA), functional enrichment analysis, protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks construction and analysis, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), ROC and Kaplan-Meier analyses, DNA methylation analyses and genomic mutation analyses, GSEA and GSVA, based on ten mRNA datasets to identify and investigate novel hub genes involved in breast cancer. In parallel, RNA in situ detection technology was applied to validate those novel hub gene.ResultsEZH2 was recognized as a key gene by PPI network analysis. CENPL, ISG20L2, LSM4 and MRPL3 were identified as four novel hub genes through the WGCNA analysis and literate search. Among those five hub genes, many studies on EZH2 gene in breast cancer have been reported, but no studies are related to the roles of CENPL, ISG20L2, MRPL3 and LSM4 in breast cancer. These novel four hub genes were up-regulated in breast cancer tissues and associated with tumor progression. ROC and Kaplan-Meier indicated these four hub genes all showed good diagnostic performance and prognostic values for breast cancer. The preliminary analysis revealed those novel hub genes are four potentially candidate genes for further exploring the molecular mechanism of breast cancer.ConclusionWe identify four novel hub genes (CENPL, ISG20L2, MRPL3, and LSM4) that are likely playing key roles in the molecular mechanism of occurrence and development of breast cancer. Those hub genes are four potentially candidate genes served as promising candidate diagnostic biomarkers and prognosis predictors for breast cancer, and their exact functional mechanisms in breast cancer deserve further in-depth study.