VIRAL DISEASE NETWORKS

 

NATALI GULBAHCE

CCNR-NEU AND DANA FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE

 

Protein-protein interactions are of central importance to almost all biological processes in the cell. Global-scale human protein-protein interaction network is becoming more complete due to high-throughput methods. Recently, virus-human protein-protein interaction networks are also becoming available. These interactions provide an invaluable insight into the disease mechanisms viruses induce and are the building blocks of our analysis on two widely studied viruses, Epstein-Barr virus B95-8 and Human Papillomavirus type 16. We show that by using protein-protein interactions, gene-disease associations, microarray and population medical history data (concept is shown in Figure 1), it is possible to modularize virus proteins and isolate disease causing proteins and the pathways they hijack. We also find that these viruses target specific regions of the human interactome and that certain genes regulated by virus-targeted transcriptional factors are overexpressed by at least 3-fold (p<0.00003) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (EBV), Burkitt’s lymphoma (EBV), and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HPV-16). We also observe that the results of gene-disease relationships predicted by our viral disease networks also manifest themselves in the population.