Identification of Novel Pathways in Plant Lectin-Induced Cancer Cell Apoptosis

Plant lectins have been investigated to elucidate their complicated mechanisms due to their remarkable anticancer activities. Although plant lectins seems promising as a potential anticancer agent for further preclinical and clinical uses, further research is still urgently needed and should include more focus on molecular mechanisms. Herein, a Naïve Bayesian model was developed to predict the protein-protein interaction (PPI), and thus construct the global human PPI network. Moreover, multiple sources of biological data, such as smallest shared biological process (SSBP), domain-domain interaction (DDI), gene co-expression profiles and cross-species interolog mapping were integrated to build the core apoptotic PPI network. In addition, we further modified it into a plant lectin-induced apoptotic cell death context. Then, we identified 22 apoptotic hub proteins in mesothelioma cells according to their different microarray expressions. Subsequently, we used combinational methods to predict microRNAs (miRNAs) which could negatively regulate the abovementioned hub proteins. Together, we demonstrated the ability of our Naïve Bayesian model-based network for identifying novel plant lectin-treated cancer cell apoptotic pathways. These findings may provide new clues concerning plant lectins as potential apoptotic inducers for cancer drug discovery.