A network diffusion approach to inferring sample-specific function reveals functional changes associated with breast cancer.

ABSTRACT: Guilt-by-association codifies the empirical observation that a gene's function is informed by its neighborhood in a biological network. This would imply that when a gene's network context is altered, for instance in disease condition, so could be the gene's function. Although context-specific changes in biological networks have been explored, the potential changes they may induce on the functional roles of genes are yet to be characterized. Here we analyze, for the first time, the network-induced potential functional changes in breast cancer. Using transcriptomic samples for 1047 breast tumors and 110 healthy breast tissues from TCGA, we derive sample-specific protein interaction networks and assign sample-specific functions to genes via a diffusion strategy. Testing for significant change

SUBMITTER: Patkar S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5708603 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature