Database screening of herbal monomers regulating autophagy by constructing a "disease-gene-drug" network

作者：Hao, Chenjun; Yang, Zhengpeng; Gao, Bo; Lu, Ming; Meng, Xianzhi; Qiao, Xin; Xue, Dongbo^*; Zhang, Weihui

来源：BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2014, 14(1): 466.

DOI：10.1186/1472-6882-14-466

• Herbal monomer
• Autophagy
• Genomics
• Bioinformatics

Background: Studies suggest an important role of autophagy as a target for cancer therapy. We constructed a "disease-gene-drug" network using the modular approach of bioinformatics and screened herbal monomers demonstrating functions related to autophagy regulation.
Methods: Based on the microarray results of the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database (GSE2435 and GSE31040, starvation-induced autophagy model), we used the human protein reference database (HPRD) to obtain the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. In addition, we used the CFinder software to identify several functional modules, performed gene ontology-biological process (GO-BP) functional enrichment analysis using the DAVID software, constructed a herbal monomer-module gene regulatory network using literature search and the Cytoscape software, and then analyzed the relationships between autophagy, genes, and herbal monomers.
Results: We screened 544 differentially expressed genes related to autophagy, 375 pairs of differentially expressed genes, and 7 gene modules, wherein the functions of module 3 (composed of 7 genes) were enriched in "cell death". Using the constructed herbal monomer-module gene regulatory network, we found that 30 herbal monomers can simultaneously regulate these 7 genes, indicating a potential regulatory role in autophagy.
Conclusions: Database screening using the disease-gene-drug network can provide new strategies and ideas for the application of herbal medicines in cancer therapy.

• 出版日期2014-12-4
• 单位哈尔滨医科大学