Shortening the list of essential genes in the human genome by network analysis

Recently, several lists for human essential genes have been presented by several studies. Expectedly, many known and important genes are among those that are crucial for cellular activities. However, in-depth analysis of these genes is required to fully understand their functions and involvements in cellular functions. Besides, finding the regulatory elements responsible for essential genes expression would be helpful to understand the core gene regulatory network of the cell. Although the primary reports on essential genes were supplemented by some analysis on the characteristics of these genes, in the current study, we have employed bioinformatics tools to add more details to the characteristics of these genes. Although all the genes on the lists appears to be essential, we have presented a shorter list of essential genes that we believe to be involved in the core cellular activities. The findings from this study would be useful in minimizing the number of target genes to develop possible anti-cancer drugs.