Identification of Key mRNAs and Pathways in Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most cancer-related death worldwide. This work aimed to identify potential hub genes and dysregulated pathways in the CRC by bioinformatics analysis. Three gene expression datasets were collected from GEO datasets, including tumor sample (N = 242) and adjacent nontumor tissue sample (N = 59). RankProd was used to discover the differential expressed genes between tumor and adjacent nontumor tissues for datasets generated by different laboratories. The gene set enrichment analysis conducted on the DE genes, followed by the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. In total, 2,007 significant differential expression (DE) genes between tumor and adjacent nontumor tissues, include 1,090 upregulated genes and 917 downregulated genes in the tumor. The DE mRNAs are involved in cancer-related pathways. We comprehensively identified the CRC-related key mRNAs. Our data demonstrated combined different resources of transcriptomes will promote the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying CRC development and may be useful in discovering candidate molecular biomarkers for diagnosing, prognosis, and treating of CRC.