About this Research Topic

Background

Cancer remains a major cause of mortality worldwide, with its death toll increasing year by year. Abnormal protein activity and regulation caused by somatic or germline mutations result in uncontrolled growth of tumour cells and metastases. The heterogeneity and complexity of tumour tissue is a significant obstacle to understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie tumour development and survival. Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for most processes within cells and understanding these PPI networks (PPIs) and how they are dysregulated in cancer cells can facilitate targeted therapies. Protein-protein interaction networks (PPIs) are mathematical representations of the physical interactions between proteins in the cell. These interactions are specific and occur between complementary surfaces in the proteins. Integrative systems analysis of these protein-protein interaction networks (PPIs) and co-expression patterns of the genes encoding the proteins can aid in the identification of new disease-associated genes and predict their importance in the tumour microenvironment.

Recent advances in tumour immunotherapy highlight the importance of targeting interactions between malignant and immune cells and significant evidence points to additional complex interactions between malignant cells and other cell types comprising the tumour microenvironment. The development of large-scale PPI screening techniques over the last number of years has caused an explosion in the amount of PPI data and the construction of interactomes within the tumour microenvironment. This research topic welcomes original research articles, review manuscripts and methods articles covering, but not restricted to, the following aspects:

• Network analyses to unveil potential drug targets in cancer.
• Identification of immune-related prognostic biomarkers using machine intelligence.
• Analyses of the molecular communication between the immune system and cancer cells in the tumour microenvironment.
• Novel methods of studying the interactomes within the tumour microenvironment.

Topic Editor Jishnu Das is a paid consultant for SeromYx Systems and holds stock in SeromYx Systems. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: PPINs, PPIs, Cancer, Drug discovery, microenvironment, biomarkers, systems biology

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