Figure 4: Prioritized cancer drug targets with empirical support.

Thirty prioritized cancer drug targets. The numbers in red represent the 30 promising targets. The numbers in grey represent the genes that failed to be targets as they are either non-essential in cancer cells or are essential in normal cells. In total, 93 genes are predicted to have a negative genetic interaction with a cancer-related gene. By examining gene essentiality in cancer and non-essentiality in normal cells, we prioritized 30 cancer drug targets. Twenty cases are essential in at least one cancer type, that is, breast, ovary or pancreas and non-essential in normal cells. Experimentally detected genetic variation/overexpression of the cancer-related gene and the RNA interference of the predicted targets in the same cancer type or the same cancer cell line were combined suggesting a double mutant. For most of these (16/20), there is empirical evidence that the cancer-related gene is mutated in either the same cancer type or the same cancer cell line as the predicted targets (blue column). For six cases that are confirmed to be non-essential in normal cells, the essentiality in cancer still needs to be examined experimentally. For four cases, the essentiality in both cancer cells and normal cells is not yet measured (red numbers in the pink column).