Protein-protein interaction network analysis of cirrhosis liver disease

Evaluation of biological characteristics of 13 identified proteins of patients with cirrhotic liver disease is the main aim of this research.

In clinical usage, liver biopsy remains the gold standard for diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis. Evaluation and confirmation of liver fibrosis stages and severity of chronic diseases require a precise and noninvasive biomarkers. Since the early detection of cirrhosis is a clinical problem, achieving a sensitive, specific and predictive novel method based on biomarkers is an important task.

Essential analysis, such as gene ontology (GO) enrichment and protein-protein interactions (PPI) was undergone EXPASy, STRING Database and DAVID Bioinformatics Resources query.

Based on GO analysis, most of proteins are located in the endoplasmic reticulum lumen, intracellular organelle lumen, membrane-enclosed lumen, and extracellular region. The relevant molecular functions are actin binding, metal ion binding, cation binding and ion binding. Cell adhesion, biological adhesion, cellular amino acid derivative, metabolic process and homeostatic process are the related processes. Protein-protein interaction network analysis introduced five proteins (fibroblast growth factor receptor 4, tropomyosin 4, tropomyosin 2 (beta), lectin, Lectin galactoside-binding soluble 3 binding protein and apolipoprotein A-I) as hub and bottleneck proteins.

Our result indicates that regulation of lipid metabolism and cell survival are important biological processes involved in cirrhosis disease. More investigation of above mentioned proteins will provide a better understanding of cirrhosis disease.