Peeling off the hidden genetic heterogeneities of cancers based on disease-relevant functional modules.

ABSTRACT: Discovering molecular heterogeneities in phenotypically defined disease is of critical importance both for understanding pathogenic mechanisms of complex diseases and for finding efficient treatments. Recently, it has been recognized that cellular phenotypes are determined by the concerted actions of many functionally related genes in modular fashions. The underlying modular mechanisms should help the understanding of hidden genetic heterogeneities of complex diseases. We defined a putative disease module to be the functional gene groups in terms of both biological process and cellular localization, which are significantly enriched with genes highly variably expressed across the disease samples. As a validation, we used two large cancer datasets to evaluate the ability of the modules for c

SUBMITTER: Xu JZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1514552 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jan-Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature