Identification of activated pathways in lung adenocarcinoma based on network strategy

Background: Lung adenocarcinoma has increased incidence over the past years and is the cause for almost 50% of deaths attributable to lung cancer. The objective of this paper is to identify activated pathways associated with lung adenocarcinoma based on gene co-expression network analysis. Materials and Methods: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis of dysregulated genes was performed based on Expression Analysis Systematic Explorer test to illuminate the biological pathways. Co-expression networks of lung adenocarcinoma in different tumor Stages (IA, IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, and IV) were constructed by Empirical Bayes approach to reweight gene pair scores. Pathway activity analysis was conducted to compute the distribution of pathways in different stages and to identify “activated” pathways in lung adenocarcinoma. Results: We evaluated 211 dysregulated genes between lung adenocarcinoma patients and normal controls. Pathway activity analysis was performed and P values of pathways, which obtained from co-expression networks (Stage IA, IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, and IV), were calculated. Cell cycle, progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation, and oocyte meiosis were activated during all stages in lung adenocarcinoma. Conclusions: We successfully identified three activated pathways (cell cycle, progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation, and oocyte meiosis) in different Stages (IA, IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, and IV) of lung adenocarcinoma

Expression dynamics of caveolin-1 in fibroblasts of newborn rats with chronic lung disease and its impact on lung fibroblast proliferation

Abstract Purpose: To evaluate the changes of caveolin-1 in lung fibroblasts in newborn Wistar rats when exposed to hyperoxic conditions, as well as lung fibroblasts cell cycle. Methods: One hundred newborn Wistar rats were randomly divided (50 rats/group) into experimental and control groups, exposed to hyperoxic conditions or normal air, respectively. The fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) in the experimental group was 90%, whereas this value was 21% in the control group. Lung fibroblasts were collected on days 3, 7, and 14 of the experiment. Caveolin-1 expression dynamics in lung fibroblasts was assayed in each group by immunofluorescence and Western blot analyses. Flow cytometry (FCM) was used to assess the proportions of lung fibroblasts at different stages of the cell cycle. Results: On day 3, no significant difference in caveolin-1 expression was observed between the hyperoxic and control groups; however, on days 7 and 14, caveolin-1 expression was significantly lower in the hyperoxic group than in the control (P<0.05). No apparent differences were observed in caveolin-1 expression in the control group at the different time points. Using FCM analysis, we showed that the proportion of lung fibroblasts in G0/G1 phase in the hyperoxic group decreased compared to that of the control group on day 7, while the proportion of S-phase cells increased (P<0.05). These differences were more significant when the groups were compared on day 14 (P<0.01). Conclusion: After seven days the exposure to hyperoxic conditions, lung fibroblasts proliferated and caveolin-1 expression decreased.