The PTEN has overall 35 interactors, 21 of which are hubs. This, together with a high betweenness value, makes PTEN a central node that acts as a bypass between several hubs inside the human protein–protein interaction network (Figure 2C). PTEN interacts with TP53 through phosphatase-dependent and -independent mechanisms (49); it is involved in the phosphorylation of ADAM29 (50); it attenuates the activity of the tyrosine kinase receptor PDGFRB (51); and, finally, it is phosphorylated by the serine/threonine kinase STK11 (52). This confirms the tendency of cancer proteins to interact with other cancer proteins, indicating that different components of the key biological processes can contribute to tumorigenesis (11).
