Title: Modelling and structural characteristics analysis of gene networks for prostate cancer

Authors: Yulin Zhang; Shudong Wang; Dazhi Meng

Addresses: College of Mathematics and Systems Science, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, Shandong 266590, China ' College of Mathematics and Systems Science, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, Shandong 266590, China; College of Computer and Communication Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, China ' College of Mathematics and Systems Science, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, Shandong 266590, China

Abstract: Analysing structure of gene networks is an important way to understand regulatory mechanisms of organism at the molecular level. In this work, gene mutual information networks are constructed based on gene expression profiles in prostate tissues with and without cancer. In order to contrast structural difference of normal and diseased networks, curves of four structural parameters are given with the change of thresholds. Then threshold discrimination intervals and discrimination weights are defined. A method of finding structural key genes with significant degree-difference is proposed. The finding of key genes will help the biomedical scientists to further research the pathogenesis of prostate cancer. Finally randomisation test is performed to prove that these structural parameters can distinguish normal and prostate cancer in their structures compared with these results in real data.

Keywords: bioinformatics; complex networks; mutual information; network statistics; randomisation test; modelling; gene networks; prostate cancer; gene expression profiles; key genes; diseased networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDMB.2015.068950

International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics, 2015 Vol.12 No.1, pp.14 - 23

Received: 20 Sep 2012
Accepted: 03 Jun 2013
Published online: 22 Apr 2015 *

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