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Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is categorized by rapid malignant cellular growth in the central nervous system (CNS) tumors. It is one of the most prevailing primary brain tumors, particularly in human male adults. Even though the combination therapy comprises surgery, chemotherapy, and adjuvant therapies, the survival rate is on average 14.6 months. Glioma stem cells (GSCs) have key roles in tumorigenesis, progression, and counteracting chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In our study, firstly, the gene expression dataset GSE45117 was retrieved and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were spotted. The co-expression network analysis was employed on DEGs to find the significant modules. The most significant module resulting from co-expression analysis was the turquoise module. The turquoise module related to the tumor cells, hypoxia, normoxic treatments of glioblastoma tumor (GBT), and GSCs were screened. Sixty-one common genes in the turquoise module were selected generated through the co-expression analysis and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network. Moreover, the GO and KEGG pathway enrichment results were studied. Twenty common hub genes were screened by the NetworkAnalyst web instrument constructed on the PPI network through the STRING database. After survival analysis via the Kaplan–Meier (KM) plotter from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we identified the five most significant hub genes strongly related to the progression of GBM. We further observed these five most significant hub genes also up-regulated in another GBM gene expression dataset. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) network of the turquoise module genes was constructed and a KEGG pathway enrichments study of the turquoise module genes was performed. The VEGF signaling pathway was emphasized because of the strong link with GBM. A gene–disease association network was further constructed to demonstrate the information of the progression of GBM and other related brain neoplasms. All hub genes assessed through this study would be potential markers for the prognosis and diagnosis of GBM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One of the deadliest and most prevalent cancer is pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Microarray has become an important tool in the research of PDAC genes and target therapeutic drugs., Objectives: This study intends to clarify the promising prognostic and biomarker targets in PDAC using GSE78229 and GSE62452 datasets, publicly accessible at the Gene Expression Omnibus database., Materials and Methods: Utilizing GEOquery, Bio base, gplots, and ggplot2 packages in the R program, this study detects 428 differentially expressed genes that are further applied to build a co-expression network by the weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA). The turquoise module presented a higher correlation with PDAC progression. 79 candidate genes were selected based on the co-expression and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. In addition, the functional enrichment analysis was studied., Results: Five significant KEGG pathways linked to PDAC were detected, in which the endoplasmic reticulum protein processing pathway was remarked to be vital. The resulting 19 hub genes as HSPA4, PABPC1, HSP90B1, PPP1CC, USP9X, EIF2S3, MSN, RAB10, BMPR2, P4HB, UBC, B2M, SLC25A5, MMP7, SPTBN1, RALB, DNAJB1, CENPE, and PDIA6 were identified by the Network Analyst web tool founded on PPI network by the STRING. These were identified as the most connected hub proteins. The quantification of the expression of levels and survival probabilities were analyzed overall survival (OS) of the real hub genes and were investigated by Kaplan-Meier (KM) plotter through The Cancer Genome Atlas Program (TCGA) database., Conclusions: The protein-protein interactions and KEGG pathway enrichment by DAVID indicated that some pathways were involved in PDAC, such as "pathways in cancer (hsa05200)", "protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum (hsa04141)", "antigen processing and presentation (hsa04612)", "dopaminergic synapse (hsa04728)", and "measles (hsa05162)"; in which these pathways, the "protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum (hsa04141)", was further studied because of its closely relationship with PDAC. The rest of the hub genes reviewed throughout the study might be promising targets for diagnosing and treating PDAC and relevant diseases., (Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s); Published by Iranian Journal of Biotechnology.)