Pathway Crosstalk Analysis Based on Protein-protein Network Analysis in Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women aged 35 to 74 years. Although there areseveral popular hypothesis of ovarian cancer pathogenesis, the genetic mechanisms are far from being clear.Recently, systems biology approaches such as network-based methods have been successfully applied to elucidatethe mechanisms of diseases. In this study, we constructed a crosstalk network among ovarian cancer relatedpathways by integrating protein-protein interactions and KEGG pathway information. Several significantpathways were identified to crosstalk with each other in ovarian cancer, such as the chemokine, Notch, Wnt andNOD-like receptor signaling pathways. Results from these studies will provide the groundwork for a combinationtherapy approach targeting multiple pathways which will likely be more effective than targeting one pathwayalone.