Issue 7, 2016

Detection of driver pathways using mutated gene network in cancer

Abstract

Distinguishing driver pathways has been extensively studied because they are critical for understanding the development and molecular mechanisms of cancers. Most existing methods for driver pathways are based on high coverage as well as high mutual exclusivity, with the underlying assumption that mutations are exclusive. However, in many cases, mutated driver genes in the same pathways are not strictly mutually exclusive. Based on this observation, we propose an index for quantifying mutual exclusivity between gene pairs. Then, we construct a mutated gene network for detecting driver pathways by integrating the proposed index and coverage. The detection of driver pathways on the mutated gene network consists of two steps: raw pathways are obtained using a CPM method, and the final driver pathways are selected using a strict testing strategy. We apply this method to glioblastoma and breast cancers and find that our method is more accurate than state-of-the-art methods in terms of enrichment of KEGG pathways. Furthermore, the detected driver pathways intersect with well-known pathways with moderate exclusivity, which cannot be discovered using the existing algorithms. In conclusion, the proposed method provides an effective way to investigate driver pathways in cancers.

Graphical abstract: Detection of driver pathways using mutated gene network in cancer

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Feb 2016
Accepted
06 Apr 2016
First published
07 Apr 2016

Mol. BioSyst., 2016,12, 2135-2141

Detection of driver pathways using mutated gene network in cancer

F. Li, L. Gao, X. Ma and X. Yang, Mol. BioSyst., 2016, 12, 2135 DOI: 10.1039/C6MB00084C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Spotlight

Advertisements