Protein network related to unfavorable prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. Identifying proteins involved in AML and understanding their molecular mechanisms is important for proposing biomarkers that can aid in the clinical management of the disease. The aim of this study was construct a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network based on proteins associated with unfavorable prognosis in AML and analyze biological pathways underlying the molecular complexes in the network. The proteins associated with unfavorable prognosis were identify from studies performed in bone marrow samples of AML patients. The PPI network was construct with Cytoscape using association networks from IntAct, String, and Biogrid databases. We carried out a Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis with DAVID and Gene Ontology Consortium online tools. Finally, we construct a biological map of proteins associated with unfavorable prognosis using PathVisio, showing their roles, interactions and the possible combined influence of these on AML prognosis. The PPI contain 1922 nodes and 5905 edges, the pathways related with AML pathogenesis were VEGF and VEGFR signaling network, signaling evens mediated by focal adhesion kinase, IGF1 pathway, IL3-mediated signaling, Class I PI3K signaling events mediated by Akt, EGF receptor (ErbB1) signaling pathway, among others. Our results represent a bioinformatic approach to understand of the molecular mechanisms of AML development and may even provide additional targets for clinical prognosis and treatment.