Study of transcription factor druggabilty for prostate cancer using structure information, gene regulatory networks and protein moonlighting

Abstract

Abstract Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in men. Metastasis shows poor survival even though the recovery rate is high. In spite of numerous studies regarding prostate carcinoma, multiple questions are still unanswered. In this regards, gene regulatory network can uncover the mechanisms behind cancer progression, and metastasis. Under a feed forward loop, transcription factors (TFs) can be a good druggable candidate. We have proposed a computational model to study the uncertainty of TFs and suggest the appropriate cellular conditions for drug targeting. We have selected feed-forward loops depending on the shared list of the functional annotations among TFs, genes and miRNAs. From the potential feed forward loop cores, six TFs were identified as druggable targets, which include AR, CEBPB, CREB1, ETS1, NFKB1 and RELA. However, TFs are known for their Protein Moonlighting properties, which provide unrelated multi-functionalities within the same or different subcellular localizations. Following that, we have identified such functions that are suitable for drug targeting. On the other hand, we have tried to identify membraneless organelles for providing more specificity to the proposed time and space theory. The study has provided certain possibilities on TF-based therapeutics. The controlled dynamic nature of the TF may have enhanced the chances where TFs can be considered as one of the prime drug targets. Finally, the combination of membranless phase separation and protein moonlighting has provided possible druggable period within the biological clock.