Dataset Information

Hidden Markov models for the assessment of chromosomal alterations using high-throughput SNP arrays.

ABSTRACT: Chromosomal DNA is characterized by variation between individuals at the level of entire chromosomes (e.g. aneuploidy in which the chromosome copy number is altered), segmental changes (including insertions, deletions, inversions, and translocations), and changes to small genomic regions (including single nucleotide polymorphisms). A variety of alterations that occur in chromosomal DNA, many of which can be detected using high density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarrays, are linked to normal variation as well as disease and therefore of particular interest. These include changes in copy number (deletions and duplications) and genotype (e.g. the occurrence of regions of homozygosity). Hidden Markov models (HMM) are particularly useful for detecting such alterations, modeling the spatial dependence between neighboring SNPs. Here, we improve previous approaches that utilize HMM frameworks for inference in high throughput SNP arrays by integrating copy number, genotype calls, and the corresponding measures of uncertainty when available. Using simulated and experimental data, we in particular demonstrate how confidence scores control smoothing in a probabilistic framework. Software for fitting HMMs to SNP array data is available in the R package vanillaICE.

SUBMITTER: Scharpf RB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2710854 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Hidden Markov models for the assessment of chromosomal alterations using high-throughput SNP arrays.

Scharpf Robert B RB Parmigiani Giovanni G Pevsner Jonathan J Ruczinski Ingo I

The annals of applied statistics 20080601 2

Chromosomal DNA is characterized by variation between individuals at the level of entire chromosomes (e.g. aneuploidy in which the chromosome copy number is altered), segmental changes (including insertions, deletions, inversions, and translocations), and changes to small genomic regions (including single nucleotide polymorphisms). A variety of alterations that occur in chromosomal DNA, many of which can be detected using high density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarrays, are linked ...[more]

PMID: 19609370

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Project description:BackgroundRiboswitches are a type of noncoding RNA that regulate gene expression by switching from one structural conformation to another on ligand binding. The various classes of riboswitches discovered so far are differentiated by the ligand, which on binding induces a conformational switch. Every class of riboswitch is characterized by an aptamer domain, which provides the site for ligand binding, and an expression platform that undergoes conformational change on ligand binding. The sequence and structure of the aptamer domain is highly conserved in riboswitches belonging to the same class. We propose a method for fast and accurate identification of riboswitches using profile Hidden Markov Models (pHMM). Our method exploits the high degree of sequence conservation that characterizes the aptamer domain.ResultsOur method can detect riboswitches in genomic databases rapidly and accurately. Its sensitivity is comparable to the method based on the Covariance Model (CM). For six out of ten riboswitch classes, our method detects more than 99.5% of the candidates identified by the much slower CM method while being several hundred times faster. For three riboswitch classes, our method detects 97-99% of the candidates relative to the CM method. Our method works very well for those classes of riboswitches that are characterized by distinct and conserved sequence motifs.ConclusionRiboswitches play a crucial role in controlling the expression of several prokaryotic genes involved in metabolism and transport processes. As more and more new classes of riboswitches are being discovered, it is important to understand the patterns of their intra and inter genomic distribution. Understanding such patterns will enable us to better understand the evolutionary history of these genetic regulatory elements. However, a complete picture of the distribution pattern of riboswitches will emerge only after accurate identification of riboswitches across genomes. We believe that the riboswitch detection method developed in this paper will aid in that process. The significant advantage in terms of speed, of our pHMM-based approach over the method based on CM allows us to scan entire databases (rather than 5'UTRs only) in a relatively short period of time in order to accurately identify riboswitch candidates.

Project description:Changes in gene expression programs play a central role in cancer. Chromosomal aberrations such as deletions, duplications and translocations of DNA segments can lead to highly significant positive correlations of gene expression levels of neighboring genes. This should be utilized to improve the analysis of tumor expression profiles. Here, we develop a novel model class of autoregressive higher-order Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) that carefully exploit local data-dependent chromosomal dependencies to improve the identification of differentially expressed genes in tumor. Autoregressive higher-order HMMs overcome generally existing limitations of standard first-order HMMs in the modeling of dependencies between genes in close chromosomal proximity by the simultaneous usage of higher-order state-transitions and autoregressive emissions as novel model features. We apply autoregressive higher-order HMMs to the analysis of breast cancer and glioma gene expression data and perform in-depth model evaluation studies. We find that autoregressive higher-order HMMs clearly improve the identification of overexpressed genes with underlying gene copy number duplications in breast cancer in comparison to mixture models, standard first- and higher-order HMMs, and other related methods. The performance benefit is attributed to the simultaneous usage of higher-order state-transitions in combination with autoregressive emissions. This benefit could not be reached by using each of these two features independently. We also find that autoregressive higher-order HMMs are better able to identify differentially expressed genes in tumors independent of the underlying gene copy number status in comparison to the majority of related methods. This is further supported by the identification of well-known and of previously unreported hotspots of differential expression in glioblastomas demonstrating the efficacy of autoregressive higher-order HMMs for the analysis of individual tumor expression profiles. Moreover, we reveal interesting novel details of systematic alterations of gene expression levels in known cancer signaling pathways distinguishing oligodendrogliomas, astrocytomas and glioblastomas. An implementation is available under www.jstacs.de/index.php/ARHMM.

Dataset Information

Hidden Markov models for the assessment of chromosomal alterations using high-throughput SNP arrays.

Publications

Hidden Markov models for the assessment of chromosomal alterations using high-throughput SNP arrays.

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