Integrative Computational Identifications of the Signaling Pathway Network Related to TNF-alpha Stimulus in Vascular Endothelial Cells

Integrating multiple datasets becomes essential for systematically understanding complex biological processes. Here, we presented a new method to identify and annotate the downstream pathways related to TNF-alpha (TNF) stimulus in vascular endothelial cells (VECs). It is found that the downstream pathways of TNF can both cause cell proliferation and cell death, which may provide an explanation for the ambiguous roles of TNF in angiogenesis. By calculating the distances in protein-protein interaction (PPI) network between different signaling pathways, many possible cross-talks are predicted, which suggests complex downstream responses for TNF stimulus.