Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease candidate gene prioritization based on metabolic networks and functional information

PLoS One. 2017 Sep 5;12(9):e0184299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184299. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a multi-factor disease, in which metabolic disturbances played important roles. In this paper, functional information was integrated into a COPD-related metabolic network to assess similarity between genes. Then a gene prioritization method was applied to the COPD-related metabolic network to prioritize COPD candidate genes. The gene prioritization method was superior to ToppGene and ToppNet in both literature validation and functional enrichment analysis. Top-ranked genes prioritized from the metabolic perspective with functional information could promote the better understanding about the molecular mechanism of this disease. Top 100 genes might be potential markers for diagnostic and effective therapies.

MeSH terms

  • Gene Ontology
  • Genetic Association Studies*
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease*
  • Humans
  • Metabolic Networks and Pathways / genetics*
  • Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / genetics*
  • Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / metabolism*
  • ROC Curve
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Software

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61272388), the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (Grant No. H2015096), and the Science & Technology Research Project of the Heilongjiang Ministry of Education (Grant No. 12541356).