On the gene expression landscape of cancer

Kauffman picture of normal and tumor states as attractors in an abstract state space is used in order to interpret gene expression data for 15 cancer localizations obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. A principal component analysis of this data unveils the following qualitative aspects about tumor...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-02, Vol.18 (2), p.e0277786-e0277786
Main Authors: Gonzalez, Augusto, Leon, Dario A, Perera, Yasser, Perez, Rolando
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Biology and Life Sciences
Biomarkers
Cancer
Distribution (Probability theory)
Distribution functions
Gene expression
Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Genes
Genetic aspects
Genomes
Humans
Kidney cancer
Liver cancer
Localization
Medicine and Health Sciences
Neoplasms - pathology
Principal components analysis
Prostate cancer
Qualitative analysis
Thyroid cancer
Tissues
Transcriptome
Tumors
Variables
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Kauffman picture of normal and tumor states as attractors in an abstract state space is used in order to interpret gene expression data for 15 cancer localizations obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. A principal component analysis of this data unveils the following qualitative aspects about tumors: 1) The state of a tissue in gene expression space can be described by a few variables. In particular, there is a single variable describing the progression from a normal tissue to a tumor. 2) Each cancer localization is characterized by a gene expression profile, in which genes have specific weights in the definition of the cancer state. There are no less than 2500 differentially-expressed genes, which lead to power-like tails in the expression distribution functions. 3) Tumors in different localizations share hundreds or even thousands of differentially expressed genes. There are 6 genes common to the 15 studied tumor localizations. 4) The tumor region is a kind of attractor. Tumors in advanced stages converge to this region independently of patient age or genetic characteristics. 5) There is a landscape of cancer in gene expression space with an approximate border separating normal tissues from tumors.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0277786