Virus Integration Project
- Project number: 202-08-14
- Students: Dana Moonshine, Moshe Natan
- Supervisor: Abraham Melkman, Dikla Dotan-Cohen, Yonatan Shamar-Avni
In a typical study of the response of a cell to viral infections, the expression of the human (host) genes in the cells is measured before and after the infection by a specific virus. However, viruses came into being through evolution; therefore the responses of a cell to different viruses belonging to the same viral families can be expected to share many characteristics.
The aim of our project was to characterize those host genes that are affected by a viral infection from a specific family. We considered several types of viruses from two virus families, the HIV and the Herpes, and integrated the data collected from several studies in order to get a broader view of these families.
For each study we collected the names of the genes that exhibited a change in their expression profile. Hyper-geometric tests were conducted in order to find those biological processes that are statistically enriched among these genes, and in order to distinguish between processes relating specifically to the infection of each family.
Our approach found many biological processes that are statistically enriched only when all previous studies are so combined. Some other processes were found to be unique to the infection of only one of the virus families. Exploring this approach on a larger scale (involving dozens of studies) could bring even more significant results.
