Topological analysis of interaction patterns in cancer-specific gene regulatory network: persistent homology approach.

In this study, we investigated cancer cellular networks in the context of gene interactions and their associated patterns in order to recognize the structural features underlying this disease. We aim to propose that the quest of understanding cancer takes us beyond pairwise interactions between genes to a higher-order construction. We characterize the most prominent network deviations in the gene interaction patterns between cancer and normal samples that contribute to the complexity of this disease.