Integrative Network Approaches to Understanding MicroRNA and Gene Expressions in Cancer

Search for this publication on Google Scholar
Hall, B. (2017). Integrative Network Approaches to Understanding MicroRNA and Gene Expressions in Cancer. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
Download PDF

Analytics

138 views ◎
68 downloads ⇓


Abstract

Cancer is among the leading cause of deaths in men and women today. Regulation of gene expression by microRNAs (miRNA) has been linked to cancer progression in recent years. Therefore there has been a growing interest understanding how miRNAs mediate gene expression in cancer. In this dissertation we aimed to construct an integrative miRNA-gene network to understand how miRNAs affect gene expression and their downstream genetic neighborhoods in ovarian cancer and colon cancer. To conduct this research, we applied different techniques to determine how miRNAs impact downstream genetic neighborhoods and identify cancer enriched neighborhoods in ovarian and colon cancer. First, we developed a community based method utilizing the spin-glass model to construct an integrative miRNA-gene network. Second, we developed a label propagation framework to construct a multi-layer miRNA-gene network to exploit the downstream effects of miRNAs throughout integrating multiple networks. We identified multiple communities enriched in cancer-driven pathways across multiple networks in ovarian cancer. We also uncovered enriched genetic neighborhoods and identified key network signatures in patients with different pathological stages in colon cancer. The methods developed provide a better outlook on how miRNAs affect gene expression and their downstream genetic neighborhoods, which will improve our understanding of their role in tumorigenesis and cancer progression.

Details
Author

Hall, Benika

Title

Integrative Network Approaches to Understanding MicroRNA and Gene Expressions in Cancer

Physical Description

1 online resource (159 pages) : PDF

Date

2017

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

Cancer is among the leading cause of deaths in men and women today. Regulation of gene expression by microRNAs (miRNA) has been linked to cancer progression in recent years. Therefore there has been a growing interest understanding how miRNAs mediate gene expression in cancer. In this dissertation we aimed to construct an integrative miRNA-gene network to understand how miRNAs affect gene expression and their downstream genetic neighborhoods in ovarian cancer and colon cancer. To conduct this research, we applied different techniques to determine how miRNAs impact downstream genetic neighborhoods and identify cancer enriched neighborhoods in ovarian and colon cancer. First, we developed a community based method utilizing the spin-glass model to construct an integrative miRNA-gene network. Second, we developed a label propagation framework to construct a multi-layer miRNA-gene network to exploit the downstream effects of miRNAs throughout integrating multiple networks. We identified multiple communities enriched in cancer-driven pathways across multiple networks in ovarian cancer. We also uncovered enriched genetic neighborhoods and identified key network signatures in patients with different pathological stages in colon cancer. The methods developed provide a better outlook on how miRNAs affect gene expression and their downstream genetic neighborhoods, which will improve our understanding of their role in tumorigenesis and cancer progression.

Genre

doctoral dissertations

Subjects--Topics

Computer science
Bioinformatics
Medical sciences

Degree

Ph.D.

Keywords

Community Detection
Label Propagation
Mirna-Gene Networks
Mirnas
Multi-Layer Networks
Ovarian Cancer

Subject Area

Bioinformatics

Advisor(s)

Shi, Xinghua

Committee Members

Fodor, Anthony
Schlueter, Jessica
Guo, Jun-tao
Saule, Erik

Degree Note

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2017.

Rights Statement

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Hall_uncc_0694D_11553

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:1225