Disruption of metazoan gene regulatory networks in cancer alters the balance of co-expression between genes of unicellular and multicellular origins.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Metazoans inherited genes from unicellular ancestors that perform essential biological processes such as cell division, metabolism, and protein translation. Multicellularity requires careful control and coordination of these unicellular genes to maintain tissue integrity and homeostasis. Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that arose during metazoan evolution are frequently altered in cancer, resulting in over-expression of unicellular genes. We propose that an imbalance in co-expression of unicellular (UC) and multicellular (MC) genes is a driving force in cancer.

Results

We combine gene co-expression analysis to infer changes to GRNs in cancer with protein sequence conservation data to distinguish genes with UC and MC origins. Co-expression networks created using RN

SUBMITTER: Trigos AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11057133 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature