Systems Biology Approaches for the Prediction of Possible Role of <i>Chlamydia pneumoniae</i> Proteins in the Etiology of Lung Cancer

<div><p>Accumulating evidence has recently supported the association of bacterial infection with the growth and development of cancers, particularly in organs that are constantly exposed to bacteria such as the lungs, colon, cervical cancer etc. Our <i>in silico</i> study on the proteome of <i>Chlamydia pneumoniae</i> suggests an unprecedented idea of the etiology of lung cancer and have revealed that the infection of <i>C</i>. <i>pneumoniae</i> is associated with lung cancer development and growth. It is reasonable to assume that <i>C</i>. <i>pneumoniae</i> transports its proteins within host-intracellular organelles during infection, where they may work with host-cell proteome. The current study was performed for the prediction of nuclear targeting protein of <i>C</i>. <i>pneumoniae</i> in the host cell using bioinformatics predictors including ExPASy pI/Mw tool, nuclear localization signal (NLS) mapper, balanced sub cellular localization predictor (BaCeILo), and Hum-mPLoc 2.0. We predicted 47/1112 nuclear-targeting proteins of <i>C</i>. <i>pneumoniae</i> connected with several possible alterations in host replication and transcription during intracellular infection. These nuclear-targeting proteins may direct to competitive interactions of host and <i>C</i>. <i>pneumoniae</i> proteins with the availability of same substrate and may be involved as etiological agents in the growth and development of lung cancer. These novel findings are expected to access in better understanding of lung cancer etiology and identifying molecular targets for therapy.</p>