Anti-Cancer Drugs Effective in Retinoblastoma: Based on a Protein-Protein Interaction Network

This paper investigates the effects of potential drugs on differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with substantial alterations in retinoblastoma malignancy.

The GSE125903 dataset consisting of ten samples was used in this study (seven cancer patients and three control samples). The genes were ordered according to their adjusted p value, and 2000 top differential expressed genes with adj p values less than 0.01 were chosen as statistically significant. The STRING database version 11.0 was used to display the interaction among genes. The Cytoscape3.8.2 and the Clusterviz plugin software were used to construct the modules for the PPI network, and five clusters of genes were formed. The DGIdb v4.2.0 database was used to study drug-gene interactions and identify potentially beneficial medicines for retinoblastoma malignancy. The DAVID v.6.8 database was used to study gene ontology (GO) and important biological pathways.

CISPLATIN, TAMOXIFEN, and CYCLOPHOSPHAMIDE are the medicines that have been shown to be successful in treating retinoblastoma in our study. Additionally, we conducted a research on three other drugs: GEMCITABINE, OLAPARIB, and MITOXANTRONE. Although it is used to treat other diseases, it seems to have no apparent effects on retinoblastoma cancer treatment.

CISPLATIN, a drug that causes apoptosis in tumors, has been proven to be the most effective therapy for retinoblastoma and should be included in treatment regimens for this illness. Of course, we obtained this information based on bioinformatics techniques, and more clinical trials are needed for more reliable results.