Identification of DEGs in TNBC
The Fig. 1 presented the workflow of this study. There were 76 TNBC tissues and 175 non-TNBC tissues in the current research. 147 and 391 DEGs from GSE36693 and GSE65216 were respectively extracted by GEO2R online tools. 157 up-regulated and 130 down-regulated DEGs were conducted in GSE36693 (Fig. 2A) with the criteria of |logFC| > 2 and adjusted p-value < 0.05; 282 up-regulated and 249 down-regulated DEGs were gained in GSE65216 (Fig. 2B). Then, Venn diagram online tool was utilized to intersect the DEGs in the two datasets and visualize them to identify the common DEGs. Consequences were that totally 140 commonly DEGs were detected in the TNBC tissues, including 69 down-regulated genes with the limitation of logFC<-2, and 71 up-regulated genes with the limitation of logFC > 2 (Fig. 2C).
DEGs GO and KEGG pathway analysis in TNBC
All of the 140 DEGs were included by DAVID online tool and the results of GO analysis indicated that: 1) as for BP, those up-regulated genes were mainly enriched in peripheral nervous system development, epidermis development, single organismal cell-cell adhesion, positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter, cytoskeleton organization etc., while down-regulated DEGs were enriched in phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling, positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter, regulation of intracellular transport, wound healing and so on; 2) in the aspect of MF, up-regulated DEGs were enriched in transcription factor activity, RNA polymerase II distal enhancer sequence-specific binding, chitinase activity, chitin binding, and down-regulated DEGs were significantly enriched in RNA polymerase II transcription factor binding, calcium ion binding, estrogen response element binding, dystroglycan binding, transcription regulatory region DNA binding; 3) for CC, up-regulated DEGs were notably enriched in the extracellular space, extracellular exosome, epidermal lamellar body, intermediate filament while down-regulated genes were mainly enriched in extracellular space (Table 1).
Table 1. Gene Ontology analysis of differentially expressed genes in TNBC.
|
Expression
|
Category
|
Term
|
Count
|
%
|
P Value
|
Up-regulated
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0007422~peripheral nervous system development
|
3
|
4.35
|
0.0036254
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0008544~epidermis development
|
4
|
5.80
|
0.003993946
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0016337~single organismal cell-cell adhesion
|
4
|
5.80
|
0.006458971
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0005615~extracellular space
|
16
|
23.19
|
7.34E-05
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0005882~intermediate filament
|
4
|
5.80
|
0.008000418
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0070062~extracellular exosome
|
19
|
27.54
|
0.009474606
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0097209~epidermal lamellar body
|
2
|
2.90
|
0.014409065
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO:0004568~chitinase activity
|
2
|
2.90
|
0.024620645
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO:0008061~chitin binding
|
2
|
2.90
|
0.028088866
|
Down
-regulated
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0014065~phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling
|
3
|
0.03
|
0.004160756
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0045944~positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter
|
10
|
0.10
|
0.00769136
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0005615~extracellular space
|
12
|
0.12
|
0.007648324
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO:0001085~RNA polymerase II transcription factor binding
|
3
|
0.03
|
0.012119346
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO:0005509~calcium ion binding
|
8
|
0.08
|
0.013256787
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO:0034056~estrogen response element binding
|
2
|
0.02
|
0.014142799
|
Outcome of KEGG analysis were shown in Table 2 and Fig. 3B, indicating that DEGs were significantly enriched in p53 signaling pathway, prostate cancer and metabolic pathways (P<0.05).
Table 2. KEGG pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes in TNBC.
|
Category
|
Term
|
Count
|
%
|
P Value
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa04115: p53 signaling pathway
|
4
|
2.88
|
0.008797166
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa05215: Prostate cancer
|
4
|
2.88
|
0.018367061
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa01100: Metabolic pathways
|
14
|
10.07
|
0.037159241
|
Protein–protein interaction network (PPI) analysis
The 140 DEGs including 69 up-regulated genes and 71 down-regulated genes were imported into the DEGs PPI network complex which contained 94 nodes and 180 edges (Fig. 4A). And 46 isolated nodes were excluded. Then, Cytoscape MCODE was applied and 29 central nodes were identified of the 94 nodes (Fig. 4B).
Re-analysis of 29 selected genes by GO and KEGG pathway enrichment
For the sake of figuring out the possible pathways of the 29 selected DEGs and verify whether they were consistent with the result of 140 DEGs enrichment analysis, the GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis was performed on these 29 DEGs again by DAVID (P<0.05). Outcome revealed that the 29 selected DEGs evidently enriched in the p53 signaling pathway, pathways in cancer, oocyte meiosis and prostate cancer (P<0.05, Tables 3 and 4 & Fig. 5).
Table 3. Re-analysis of 29 selected genes via Gene Ontology enrichment.
|
Category
|
Term
|
Count
|
P Value
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0045893~positive regulation of transcription, DNA-templated
|
9
|
9.84E-07
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0045944~positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter
|
11
|
1.50E-06
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0006366~transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter
|
7
|
1.35E-04
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0048546~digestive tract morphogenesis
|
3
|
1.92E-04
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0043568~positive regulation of insulin-like growth factor receptor signaling pathway
|
3
|
1.92E-04
|
GOTERM_BP_DIRECT
|
GO:0014065~phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling
|
3
|
8.52E-04
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0005882~intermediate filament
|
4
|
6.79E-04
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0005615~extracellular space
|
9
|
7.11E-04
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0005634~nucleus
|
16
|
0.006994347
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0070062~extracellular exosome
|
10
|
0.020917677
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0000790~nuclear chromatin
|
3
|
0.035216711
|
GOTERM_CC_DIRECT
|
GO:0030057~desmosome
|
2
|
0.036252678
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO: 0008134~transcription factor binding
|
7
|
5.93E-06
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO: 0043565~sequence-specific DNA binding
|
7
|
1.72E-04
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO: 0000981~RNA polymerase II transcription factor activity, sequence-specific DNA binding
|
5
|
1.72E-04
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO: 0044212~transcription regulatory region DNA binding
|
5
|
3.98E-04
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO: 0005515~protein binding
|
24
|
9.40E-04
|
GOTERM_MF_DIRECT
|
GO: 0001085~RNA polymerase II transcription factor binding
|
3
|
0.002738639
|
Table 4 . Re-analysis of 29 selected genes via KEGG pathway enrichment.
|
Category
|
Term
|
Count
|
P Value
|
Genes
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa04115: p53 signaling pathway
|
4
|
1.38E-04
|
CCNE1, CDKN2A, SERPINB5, IGF1
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa05215:
Prostate cancer
|
3
|
0.008256173
|
CCNE1, AR, IGF1
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa04114:
Oocyte meiosis
|
3
|
0.012905535
|
CCNE1, AR, IGF1
|
KEGG_PATHWAY
|
hsa05200:
Pathways in cancer
|
4
|
0.021651652
|
CCNE1, AR, CDKN2A, IGF1
|
Analysis of core genes by the GEPIA
After taking the results of both PPI analysis and the KEGG pathway enrichment into consideration, we found that CCNE1, CDKN2A, AR, SERPINB5 and IGF1 among the 29 selected genes could play a key role in common significantly enriched pathways. Then, GEPIA was utilized to analyze the differences in the expression of these 5 genes of TNBC and non-TNBC tissues. Compared with non-TBNC samples, three hub-genes (CCNE1, AR, CDKN2A) were highly expressed while two gens (SERPINB5, IGF1) were not in TNBC samples (P<0.05, Fig. 6).
Survival analysis using cBioportal
cBioportal was used to identify 3 hub genes using survival data. Only CCNE1 had a obviously worse survival, while the other two genes did not (P <0.05, Fig. 7).