Inferring therapeutic targets from heterogeneous data: HKDC1 is a novel potential therapeutic target for cancer

Motivation: The discovery of therapeutic targets is important for cancer treatment. Although dozens of targets have been used in cancer therapies, cancer remains a serious disease with a high mortality rate. Owing to the expansion of cancer-related data, we now have the opportunity to infer therapeutic targets using computational biology methods. Results: Here, we describe a method, termed anticancer activity enrichment analysis, used to determine genes that could be used as therapeutic targets. The results show that these genes have high like-lihoods of being developed into clinical targets (> 60%). Combined with gene expression data, we predicted 50 candidate targets for lung cancer, of which 19 of the top 20 genes are targeted by approved drugs or drugs used in clinical trials. A hexokinase family member, hexokinase domain-containing protein 1 (HKDC1), is the only one of the top 20 genes that has not been targeted by either an approved drug or one being used in clinical trials. Further investigations indicate that HKDC1 is a novel potential therapeutic target for lung cancer. Conclusion: We developed a protocol to identify potential therapeutic targets from heterogeneous data. We suggest that HKDC1 is a novel potential therapeutic target for lung cancer.