Meta-analysis reveals conserved cell cycle transcriptional network across multiple human cell types

Cell division is central to the physiology and pathology of all eukaryotic organisms. The molecular machinery underpinning the cell cycle has been studied extensively in a number of species and core aspects of it have been found to be highly conserved. Similarly, the transcriptional changes associated with this pathway have been studied in different organisms and different cell types. In each case hundreds of genes have been reported to be regulated, however there seems to be little consensus in the genes identified across different studies. In a recent comparison of transcriptomic studies of the cell cycle in different human cell types, only 96 cell cycle genes were reported to be the same across all studies examined.

Here we perform a systematic re-examination of published human cell cycle expression data by using a network-based approach to identify groups of genes with a similar expression profile and therefore function. Two clusters in particular, containing 298 transcripts, showed patterns of expression consistent with cell cycle occurrence across the four human cell types assessed.

Our analysis shows that there is a far greater conservation of cell cycle-associated gene expression across human cell types than reported previously, which can be separated into two distinct transcriptional networks associated with the G₁/S-S and G₂-M phases of the cell cycle. This work also highlights the benefits of performing a re-analysis on combined datasets.