Analysis of Candidate Genes Has Proposed the Role of Y Chromosome in Human Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is a serious genetic disease known as the first widespread cancer in men, yet the molecular changes required for the cancer progression is not fully understood. Availability of high-throughput gene expression data has led to the development of various computational methods for the identification of critical genes involved in the cancer.In this paper, we show that constructing co-expression networks using Y-chromosome genes provides an alternative strategy for detection of new candidate may involve in prostate cancer. In our approach, we constructed independent co-expression networks from normal and cancerous stages using an engineering approach. We next highlighted crucial genes involved in the prostate cancer by analyzing networks based on party and date hubs.Our results led to the detection of 19 critical genes related to prostate cancer which 12 of them were previously shown to be involved in this cancer. Also, essential Y chromosome genes were searched based on reconstruction of sub-networks which led to the identification of 4 experimentally established as well as 4 new Y chromosome genes may be linked putatively to prostate cancer.Correct inference of master genes whose mediate molecular changes during cancer progression is one of the major challenges in cancer genomics. In this paper, we show the role of Y chromosome genes in finding of prostate cancer susceptibility genes. Application of our approach to the prostate cancer has led to the establishment of the previous knowledge about this cancer as well as prediction of other new genes.