Pathway Analysis For Pancreatic Cancer Using Path Visio

It has been estimated that 170,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer occur worldwide per year.Approximately 80 – 90% of cases diagnosed happen in advanced stage of disease. The occurrence ofdiseases has two sides of genetics and environment. Microarray technique make it possible toanalyze the expression of a large number of genes, simultaneously. The aim of this study was to useof microarray data for analyzing of biological pathways involved in pancreatic cancer. Themicroarray data were obtained from ArrayExpress data bank (ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress; AccessionNo: E-GEOD-27890). The quality of data was controlled using the facility available inArrayAnalysis.org website. Gene expression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma and adjacent ductalepithelia from the same patient using laser capture microdissection dissected samples wasanalyzed. Path Visio 3.2.2 was utilized to perform pathway analysis. From the 20,111 genes thatpassed the quality control, 19,966 genes could be linked to Ensembl identifiers by Path Visio. Only6097 of these genes were associated with the human pathways in the Path Visio repository. Thenumber of genes on the pathways that passed the criterion was 1074. Twenty two biologicalpathways had highest positive ɀ score and were ranked as most regulated. The results show that thebiological pathways that are involved in cell apoptosis are highly active in pancreatic cancer. Thetransforming growth factor (TGF) beta signaling pathway, TGF beta receptor signaling, Oxidativestress and lung fibrosis are included in this pathway. There are many genes that up/down regulatedin these biological functions. The results of this study revealed that several pathways interfered inpancreatic cancer. The transcription level of genes were different, so some genes were significantlyupregulated and some suppressed. However, apoptosis was a process that was indicatedsignificantly including in pancreatic cancer. It is necessary that the genes involved in apoptosis areinvestigated in details for their functions and pathways.