**2.5 PPI network construction and topology analysis**

Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was built using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins database [78, 79] (STRING v11.5; https:// string-db.org/), a database that integrates diverse data sources to predict the presence and strength of functional associations between proteins. With a confidence score of 0.7, the PPI network was built then exported to Cytoscape v3.9.1 [80] for further analysis. Cytoscape is a software platform for visualizing molecular interaction networks and biological pathways. The topology of the network was analyzed using the Cytohubba plugin [81, 82], which is a Cytoscape plugin that measures the topological properties of the nodes in a network. The top 10 genes with the highest maximal clique centrality (MCC) were considered as hub genes.
