Cancer Networks: Insights Into The DiseaseMechanisms

Biological systems, akin to engineered electrical or electronic circuits rely on modular organization, with naturally interconnected molecular components forming intricate circuits responsible for maintaining cellular processes. Just as electronic circuits are engineered with feedback mechanisms to regulate and stabilize their output, biological circuits employ naturally designed (acquired through evolution) intricate feedback loops to maintain cellular processes. Nature has tuned several specific feedback and feed forward mechanisms over the evolutionary time scale to perform normal biological functions such as signal amplification, attenuation, and homeostasis. In diseases such as cancer, dysregulated feed forward and feedback loops lead to uncontrolled cell growth, resistance to therapy, and disease progression. Adopting this network or circuits perspective offers unique insights into understanding the behavior of biological systems and disease emergence. Intricate understanding of dysregulated biological circuits in cancer extends beyond theoretical speculation. Thus, by integrating knowledge of dysregulated circuits, it is possible to identify vulnerabilities within these circuits and has aided in unravelling the mechanisms driving cancer, design tailored approaches for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic interventions. The present work illustrates the properties of four different cancer networks namely breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Unique signature of the cancer networks known as network motifs were identified. Specifically, this work explores the prevalence of coherent type 1 feed forward motifs within each network. Such analysis can assist in understanding the diseases mechanism, developing innovative therapeutic strategies that target specific components towards suppressing cancer circuitry.