Cited by 31Bioinformatics and Genomic NetworksProtein Structure and DynamicsCancer Genomics and Diagnostics

Computed cancer interactome explains the effects of somatic mutations in cancers

Open access
Zhang, Jing, Pei, Jimin, Durham, Jesse, Bos, Tasia, Cong, Qian·2022·Protein Science

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) are involved in almost all essential cellular processes. Perturbation of PPI networks plays critical roles in tumorigenesis, cancer progression, and metastasis. While numerous high‐throughput experiments have produced a vast amount of data for PPIs, these data sets suffer from high false positive rates and exhibit a high degree of discrepancy. Coevolution of amino acid positions between protein pairs has proven to be useful in identifying interacting proteins and providing structural details of the interaction interfaces with the help of deep learning methods like AlphaFold (AF). In this study, we applied AF to investigate the cancer protein–protein interactome. We predicted 1,798 PPIs for cancer driver proteins involved in diverse cellular processes such as transcription regulation, signal transduction, DNA repair, and cell cycle. We modeled the spatial structures for the predicted binary protein complexes, 1,087 of which lacked previous 3D structure information. Our predictions offer novel structural insight into many cancer‐related processes such as the MAP kinase cascade and Fanconi anemia pathway. We further investigated the cancer mutation landscape by mapping somatic missense mutations (SMMs) in cancer to the predicted PPI interfaces and performing enrichment and depletion analyses. Interfaces enriched or depleted with SMMs exhibit different preferences for functional categories. Interfaces enriched in mutations tend to function in pathways that are deregulated in cancers and they may help explain the molecular mechanisms of cancers in patients; interfaces lacking mutations appear to be essential for the survival of cancer cells and thus may be future targets for PPI modulating drugs.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/pro.4479

Cites

134 of 134 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 135 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Zhang, J., Pei, J., Durham, J., Bos, T., & Cong, Q.
Affiliations
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (US)
Corresponding author
Cong, Qian
Venue
Protein Science
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2022-11-16
Volume
31
Issue
12
Pages
e4479-e4479
ISSN
  • 0961-8368 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-896X
OpenAlex
W4306914612
Cited by
31
References
135
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2
FWCI
2.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Protein Science (publishedVersion)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RP210041)
  • Welch Foundation (I‐2095‐20220331)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Structure and Dynamics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics
Keywords
protein-protein interaction, somatic missense mutations, coevolution, AlphaFold, protein complex structure prediction, MAP kinase cascade, Fanconi anemia pathway
MeSH terms
Humans, Mutation, Neoplasms, Proteins, Mutation, Missense, Protein Interaction Mapping

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review