Identification of Prognostic Signature in Esophageal Cancer Based on Network Analysis

Esophageal cancer is the 6th most common cancer in the world with a five-year survival among 15 $$\%$$ to 25 $$\%$$ patients. It’s of great significance to identify prognostic signature for precise prediction of patient survival. In this work, we use a network-based approach to identify the disease genes of esophageal cancer. We construct the co-expression networks of normal and cancer samples by interpreting the gene expression profile and further divide the networks into inactivated subnetwork and enhanced subnetwork. Functional enrichment analysis shows that phosphoprotein and acetylation are both enriched in the inactivated genes and enhanced genes. Furthermore, 5 kinesin family members, KIF11, KIF23, KIF18A, KIF18B, and KIF2A, are all found to be significantly enhanced, suggesting that kinesin is crucial in promoting the formation of esophageal cancer. The 11 genes both inactivated and enhanced in the process of tumor development are found to be prognosis-associated and perform well in evaluating the survival of esophageal cancer patients. This study provides us fundamental recognition about the functional dysregulation in esophageal cancer and help to identify the biomarker for the further development of therapeutic targets.