Systematic Proteomics Analysis of Colorectal Cancer: to Recognize Potential Biomarkers and Remedial Target

Abstract

BackgroundColorectal Cancer (CRC) is a high prevalence malignant of the digestive system. Notwithstanding huge investigation, the precise involved mechanisms are still blunted. It emerges that more research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms of CRC better. In this investigation, a systems biology method was applied to provide a comprehensive insight through making a multilayer network to recognize novel biomarkers and potential drug targets.MethodTo identify the affected proteins in this disease, an existing protein expression profile on CRC was attained from ProteomeXchange. In the first step, the quality of the dataset was assessed, and then differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were recognized based on FDR<0.05 as the statistically significant threshold. Subsequently, all identified DEPs were subjected to further enrichment analysis for finding the involved biomedical phenomena. In the following action, lncRNAs and miRNAs related to DEPs were predicted as regulatory layers via Cytoscape to make an integrative network.ResultThe empirical findings in this study indicated that the identified DEPs were mainly associated with two biomedical terms, such as “Mitochondrial dysfunction” and “Extracellular matrix organization.” Additionally, several hub molecules were introduced in the constructed multilayer network, hub-DEPs (ITGB1, ACTG1, ...), hub-miRs (miR-16-5p, miR-26b-5p, ...), and hub-lncRNAs (KCNQ1OT1, NEAT1, …) that Can be deemed as a potential biomarker in the pathogenesis of CRC, further research should concentrate on the investigation of their role in CRC development.ConclusionThe attained results of this study may be paving a way to provide a deeper understanding of the vaguely involved mechanisms through an integrative insight into the interaction of proteins with regulatory layers.