Bioinformatics Analyses of the Role of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Purpose This study was aimed to identify the expression pattern of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to explore its potential correlation with the progression of NSCLC. Methods Gene expression profile GSE39345 was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Twenty healthy controls and 32 NSCLC samples before chemotherapy were analyzed to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Then pathway enrichment analysis of the DEGs was performed and protein-protein interaction networks were constructed. Particularly, VEGF genes and the VEGF signaling pathway were analyzed. The sub-network was constructed followed by functional enrichment analysis. Results Total 1666 up-regulated and 1542 down-regulated DEGs were identified. The down-regulated DEGs were mainly enriched in the pathways associated with cancer. VEGFA and VEGFB were found to be the initiating factor of VEGF signaling pathway. In addition, in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), VEGFA and VEGFB associated sub-network, kinase insert domain receptor (KDR), fibronectin 1 (FN1), transforming growth factor beta induced (TGFBI) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) were found to interact with at least two of the three hub genes. The DEGs in this sub-network were mainly enriched in Gene Ontology terms related to cell proliferation. Conclusion EGFR, KDR, FN1, TGFBI and PCNA may interact with VEGFA to play important roles in NSCLC tumorigenesis. These genes and corresponding proteins may have the potential to be used as the targets for either diagnosis or treatment of patients with NSCLC.