Bioinformatic analysis of differentially-expressed genes corregulated by NOTCH in breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer development and progression require the involvement of an array of cell signaling pathways and biological processes, the NOTCH signaling pathway being of particular interest. The NOTCH pathway, although extensively regulated, is a highly resourceful pathway due to its apparent relativity with other cellular pathways. This expands the pathway’s ability to directly or indirectly influence and regulate other biological processes in order to repress proliferation, angiogenesis, metastasis, differentiation, of malignant cells while promoting their apoptosis in breast cancer. Recently, researchers have focused on NOTCH signaling and its relationship to anti-tumor immunity. Hence, this study intended to conduct a bioinformatic analysis of NOTCH pathway, its related components and genes in breast cancer to identify possible druggable targets (genes) for developing novel anti-cancer molecules in management and treatment of breast cancer. The potential targets include TEK, ENG, KDR, NOS3, IGF1, PPARG, ACVRL1, ADIPOQ, and TGFBR2. The current study collected primary data from KEGG Database, GSEA, UALCAN, cBioPortal, GEPIA 2, ShinyGO and SNPs3D to establish a list of genes that are plausible candidates to consider for rational drug development.