LAUSR

Background: Bone metastases are a cancer which causes great injury to people world-widely. Although gene expression analyses had been performed previously, systemic co-expression analysis for this cancer is still lacking. Methods: Here, we analyzed the co-expression modules with the help of WGCNA (weighted correlation network analysis) and investigated the function enrichment of co-expression genes form important modules. Firstly, the co-expression modules were conducted for 6,922 genes in the 20 bone metastases samples recently. Then, the interaction relationships of hub-genes between pairwise modules were analyzed using WGCNA algorithm. Following that, the genes in the bone metastases co-expression modules were subjected to do functional annotation analysis. Results: The functional enrichment for the top five modules exhibited great differences, with the module two enriched in focal adhesion, ECM-receptor interaction and cell adhesion molecules. We then inferred genes of the module two were the important genes which were associated with bone metastases. Conclusions: Together, our findings provided the framework of co-expression gene modules of bone metastases and furthered the understanding of these modules at functional aspect.