Abstract:

BACKGROUND: It is sufficient to reprogram somatic cells, through transduction of some core transcription factors, into pluripotent stem cells (iPS) that exhibit the essential characteristics of embryonic stem (ES) cells. At present, the complex mechanism is not yet fully understood.
OBJECTIVE: To study the protein interaction networks related to core transcription factors target genes in embryonic stem cells and to obtain regulatory mechanism controlled “stemness”.
METHODS: Non-redundant protein interaction data (NRPD) were obtained after removal of redundant data in BioGRID database. Protein interaction pairs, formed by the target genes, were extracted by perl program and the largest continuous protein interaction networks were obtained through searching NRPD using breadth-first search algorithm. At the same time, 1 000 random networks were analyzed and compared. At last, network visualization was analyzed through the Cytoscape software and network characteristics were explained using complex scale-free network model of Barabasi-Albert.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: More protein interaction pairs and larger continuous protein network, statistically significant difference compared with random genes, were formed by core transcription factor target genes. The continuous protein network is scale-free characteristics of complex networks. This study has suggested that target genes may regulate synergistically “stemness” characteristics of embryonic stem cells through close interaction and forming a network module.