Pan-Cancer Exploration of mRNA Mediated Dysregulated Pathways in the Cancer Genomics Cloud

Abstract

We performed a comprehensive pan-cancer analysis in the Cancer Genomics Cloud of HTSeq-FPKM normalized protein coding mRNA data from 17 cancer projects in the Cancer Genome Atlas, these are Adrenal Gland, Bile Duct, Bladder, Brain, Breast, Cervix, Colorectal, Esophagus, Head and Neck, Kidney, Liver, Lung, Pancreas, Prostate, Stomach, Thyroid and Uterus. The PoTRA algorithm was applied to the normalized mRNA protein coding data and detected dysregulated pathways that can be implicated in the pathogenesis of these cancers. Then the PageRank algorithm was applied to the PoTRA results to find the most influential dysregulated pathways among all 17 cancer types. Pathways in cancer is the most common dysregulated pathway, and the MAPK signaling pathway is the most influential (PageRank score = 0.2034) while the purine metabolism pathway is the most significantly dysregulated metabolic pathway.