IDENTIFICATION OF IMPORTANT KEY REGULATORS IN CERVICAL CANCER NETWORK

Abstract

Cervical cancer is a major cause of death in women. It’s a cancer of the cervix, of the female reproductive organ; cervix is a narrow opening in the uterus and joins it to the vagina. There are 3000 genes associated with cervical cancer. We created a PPI network and then studied the topological properties of the network that gave evidence that the network is scale free, the degree distribution obeys power law and have some nodes (vertices) that play a crucial role during cancer progression. So the aim of this project was to identify these nodes (also called fundamental key regulators) and the strategy used for this, is based on Barabasi-Albert model (which is a bottom up approach). The model suggested that the network we created, is evolved in nature by growth and preferential attachment concept, and have hub nodes. Finally, we concluded that there are 7 fundamental key regulators are present in our network that is dominant, which means if we are able to delete these key regulators, the whole network would be collapsed. So, by understanding the complex functionality and regulation of these fundamental key regulators, we can identify the diagnostic biomarkers and can be developed early detection techniques and therapy for cervical cancer. The list of seven fundamental key regulators involved in cervical cancer progression is given below: CDK2, E2F1, CDKN1A, CDKN2A, TP53, PTGS2 and CTNNB1.