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Complexity reduction in context-dependent DNA substitution models.

ABSTRACT: The modeling of conservation patterns in genomic DNA has become increasingly popular for a number of bioinformatic applications. While several systems developed to date incorporate context-dependence in their substitution models, the impact on computational complexity and generalization ability of the resulting higher order models invites the question of whether simpler approaches to context modeling might permit appreciable reductions in model complexity and computational cost, without sacrificing prediction accuracy.We formulate several alternative methods for context modeling based on windowed Bayesian networks, and compare their effects on both accuracy and computational complexity for the task of discriminating functionally distinct segments in vertebrate DNA. Our results show that substantial reductions in the complexity of both the model and the associated inference algorithm can be achieved without reducing predictive accuracy.

SUBMITTER: Majoros WH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2732293 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Complexity reduction in context-dependent DNA substitution models.

Majoros William H WH Ohler Uwe U

Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) 20081118 2

<h4>Motivation</h4>The modeling of conservation patterns in genomic DNA has become increasingly popular for a number of bioinformatic applications. While several systems developed to date incorporate context-dependence in their substitution models, the impact on computational complexity and generalization ability of the resulting higher order models invites the question of whether simpler approaches to context modeling might permit appreciable reductions in model complexity and computational cos ...[more]

PMID: 19017657

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Project description:BackgroundNeighboring nucleotides exert a striking influence on mutation, with the hypermutability of CpG dinucleotides in many genomes being an exemplar. Among the approaches employed to measure the relative importance of sequence neighbors on molecular evolution have been continuous-time Markov process models for substitutions that treat sequences as a series of independent tuples. The most widely used examples are the codon substitution models. We evaluated the suitability of derivatives of the nucleotide frequency weighted (hereafter NF) and tuple frequency weighted (hereafter TF) models for measuring sequence context dependent substitution. Critical properties we address are their relationships to an independent nucleotide process and the robustness of parameter estimation to changes in sequence composition. We then consider the impact on inference concerning dinucleotide substitution processes from application of these two forms to intron sequence alignments from primates.ResultsWe prove that the NF form always nests the independent nucleotide process and that this is not true for the TF form. As a consequence, using TF to study context effects can be misleading, which is shown by both theoretical calculations and simulations. We describe a simple example where a context parameter estimated under TF is confounded with composition terms unless all sequence states are equi-frequent. We illustrate this for the dinucleotide case by simulation under a nucleotide model, showing that the TF form identifies a CpG effect when none exists. Our analysis of primate introns revealed that the effect of nucleotide neighbors is over-estimated under TF compared with NF. Parameter estimates for a number of contexts are also strikingly discordant between the two model forms.ConclusionOur results establish that the NF form should be used for analysis of independent-tuple context dependent processes. Although neighboring effects in general are still important, prominent influences such as the elevated CpG transversion rate previously identified using the TF form are an artifact. Our results further suggest as few as 5 parameters may account for approximately 85% of neighboring nucleotide influence.

Project description:BACKGROUND: The question of how to integrate heterogeneous sources of biological information into a coherent framework that allows the gene regulatory code in eukaryotes to be systematically investigated is one of the major challenges faced by systems biology. Probability landscapes, which include as reference set the probabilistic representation of the genomic sequence, have been proposed as a possible approach to the systematic discovery and analysis of correlations amongst initially heterogeneous and un-relatable descriptions and genome-wide measurements. Much of the available experimental sequence and genome activity information is de facto, but not necessarily obviously, context dependent. Furthermore, the context dependency of the relevant information is itself dependent on the biological question addressed. It is hence necessary to develop a systematic way of discovering the context-dependency of functional genomics information in a flexible, question-dependent manner. RESULTS: We demonstrate here how feature context-dependency can be systematically investigated using probability landscapes. Furthermore, we show how different feature probability profiles can be conditionally collapsed to reduce the computational and formal, mathematical complexity of probability landscapes. Interestingly, the possibility of complexity reduction can be linked directly to the analysis of context-dependency. CONCLUSION: These two advances in our understanding of the properties of probability landscapes not only simplify subsequent cross-correlation analysis in hypothesis-driven model building and testing, but also provide additional insights into the biological gene regulatory problems studied. Furthermore, insights into the nature of individual features and a classification of features according to their minimal context-dependency are achieved. The formal structure proposed contributes to a concrete and tangible basis for attempting to formulate novel mathematical structures for describing gene regulation in eukaryotes on a genome-wide scale.

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Complexity reduction in context-dependent DNA substitution models.

Publications

Complexity reduction in context-dependent DNA substitution models.

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