A comprehensive analysis of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway-related genes and crosstalk pathways in the treatment of As(2)O(3) in renal cancer

We aimed to investigate the effect of As(2)O(3) treatment on Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway-related genes and pathways in renal cancer. Illumina-based RNA-seq of 786-O cells with or without As(2)O(3) treatment was performed, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using Cuffdiff software. TargetMine was utilized to perform Gene Ontology (GO) pathway and Disease Ontology enrichment analyses. Furthermore, TRANSFAC database and LPIA method were applied to select differentially expressed transcription factors (TFs) and pathways related to Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, respectively. Additionally, transcriptional regulatory and pathway crosstalk networks were constructed. In total, 1684 DEGs and 69 TFs were screened out. The 821 up-regulated DEGs were mainly enriched in 67 pathways, 70 GO terms, and 46 disease pathways, while only 1 pathway and 5 GO terms were enriched for 863 down-regulated DEGs. A total of 18 DEGs (4 up-regulated and 14 down-regulated genes) were involved in the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Among the 18 DEGs, 4 ones were TFs. Furthermore, 211 pathways were predicted to be linked to the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In conclusion, As(2)O(3) may have a significant effect on the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway for renal cancer treatment. The potential key DEGs are expected to be used as therapeutic targets.