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Integrating quantitative knowledge into a qualitative gene regulatory network.

ABSTRACT: Despite recent improvements in molecular techniques, biological knowledge remains incomplete. Any theorizing about living systems is therefore necessarily based on the use of heterogeneous and partial information. Much current research has focused successfully on the qualitative behaviors of macromolecular networks. Nonetheless, it is not capable of taking into account available quantitative information such as time-series protein concentration variations. The present work proposes a probabilistic modeling framework that integrates both kinds of information. Average case analysis methods are used in combination with Markov chains to link qualitative information about transcriptional regulations to quantitative information about protein concentrations. The approach is illustrated by modeling the carbon starvation response in Escherichia coli. It accurately predicts the quantitative time-series evolution of several protein concentrations using only knowledge of discrete gene interactions and a small number of quantitative observations on a single protein concentration. From this, the modeling technique also derives a ranking of interactions with respect to their importance during the experiment considered. Such a classification is confirmed by the literature. Therefore, our method is principally novel in that it allows (i) a hybrid model that integrates both qualitative discrete model and quantities to be built, even using a small amount of quantitative information, (ii) new quantitative predictions to be derived, (iii) the robustness and relevance of interactions with respect to phenotypic criteria to be precisely quantified, and (iv) the key features of the model to be extracted that can be used as a guidance to design future experiments.

SUBMITTER: Bourdon J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3174175 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Integrating quantitative knowledge into a qualitative gene regulatory network.

Bourdon Jérémie J Eveillard Damien D Siegel Anne A

PLoS computational biology 20110915 9

Despite recent improvements in molecular techniques, biological knowledge remains incomplete. Any theorizing about living systems is therefore necessarily based on the use of heterogeneous and partial information. Much current research has focused successfully on the qualitative behaviors of macromolecular networks. Nonetheless, it is not capable of taking into account available quantitative information such as time-series protein concentration variations. The present work proposes a probabilist ...[more]

PMID: 21935350

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Network-based approaches for the analysis of large-scale genomics data have become well established. Biological networks provide a knowledge scaffold against which the patterns and dynamics of 'omics' data can be interpreted. The background information required for the construction of such networks is often dispersed across a multitude of knowledge bases in a variety of formats. The seamless integration of this information is one of the main challenges in bioinformatics. The Semantic Web offers powerful technologies for the assembly of integrated knowledge bases that are computationally comprehensible, thereby providing a potentially powerful resource for constructing biological networks and network-based analysis. RESULTS: We have developed the Gene eXpression Knowledge Base (GeXKB), a semantic web technology based resource that contains integrated knowledge about gene expression regulation. To affirm the utility of GeXKB we demonstrate how this resource can be exploited for the identification of candidate regulatory network proteins. We present four use cases that were designed from a biological perspective in order to find candidate members relevant for the gastrin hormone signaling network model. We show how a combination of specific query definitions and additional selection criteria derived from gene expression data and prior knowledge concerning candidate proteins can be used to retrieve a set of proteins that constitute valid candidates for regulatory network extensions. CONCLUSIONS: Semantic web technologies provide the means for processing and integrating various heterogeneous information sources. The GeXKB offers biologists such an integrated knowledge resource, allowing them to address complex biological questions pertaining to gene expression. This work illustrates how GeXKB can be used in combination with gene expression results and literature information to identify new potential candidates that may be considered for extending a gene regulatory network.

Project description:BackgroundGene regulatory networks (GRNs) are models of molecule-gene interactions instrumental in the coordination of gene expression. Transcription factor (TF)-GRNs are an important subset of GRNs that characterize gene expression as the effect of TFs acting on their target genes. Although such networks can qualitatively summarize TF-gene interactions, it is highly desirable to quantitatively determine the strengths of the interactions in a TF-GRN as well as the magnitudes of TF activities. To our knowledge, such analysis is rare in plant biology. A computational methodology developed for this purpose is network component analysis (NCA), which has been used for studying large-scale microbial TF-GRNs to obtain nontrivial, mechanistic insights. In this work, we employed NCA to quantitatively analyze a plant TF-GRN important in floral development using available regulatory information from AGRIS, by processing previously reported gene expression data from four shoot apical meristem cell types.ResultsThe NCA model satisfactorily accounted for gene expression measurements in a TF-GRN of seven TFs (LFY, AG, SEPALLATA3 [SEP3], AP2, AGL15, HY5 and AP3/PI) and 55 genes. NCA found strong interactions between certain TF-gene pairs including LFY???MYB17, AG???CRC, AP2???RD20, AGL15???RAV2 and HY5???HLH1, and the direction of the interaction (activation or repression) for some AGL15 targets for which this information was not previously available. The activity trends of four TFs?-?LFY, AG, HY5 and AP3/PI as deduced by NCA correlated well with the changes in expression levels of the genes encoding these TFs across all four cell types; such a correlation was not observed for SEP3, AP2 and AGL15.ConclusionsFor the first time, we have reported the use of NCA to quantitatively analyze a plant TF-GRN important in floral development for obtaining nontrivial information about connectivity strengths between TFs and their target genes as well as TF activity. However, since NCA relies on documented connectivity information about the underlying TF-GRN, it is currently limited in its application to larger plant networks because of the lack of documented connectivities. In the future, the identification of interactions between plant TFs and their target genes on a genome scale would allow the use of NCA to provide quantitative regulatory information about plant TF-GRNs, leading to improved insights on cellular regulatory programs.

Project description:Gene regulatory networks are a crucial aspect of systems biology in describing molecular mechanisms of the cell. Various computational models rely on random gene selection to infer such networks from microarray data. While incorporation of prior knowledge into data analysis has been deemed important, in practice, it has generally been limited to referencing genes in probe sets and using curated knowledge bases. We investigate the impact of augmenting microarray data with semantic relations automatically extracted from the literature, with the view that relations encoding gene/protein interactions eliminate the need for random selection of components in non-exhaustive approaches, producing a more accurate model of cellular behavior. A genetic algorithm is then used to optimize the strength of interactions using microarray data and an artificial neural network fitness function. The result is a directed and weighted network providing the individual contribution of each gene to its target. For testing, we used invasive ductile carcinoma of the breast to query the literature and a microarray set containing gene expression changes in these cells over several time points. Our model demonstrates significantly better fitness than the state-of-the-art model, which relies on an initial random selection of genes. Comparison to the component pathways of the KEGG Pathways in Cancer map reveals that the resulting networks contain both known and novel relationships. The p53 pathway results were manually validated in the literature. 60% of non-KEGG relationships were supported (74% for highly weighted interactions). The method was then applied to yeast data and our model again outperformed the comparison model. Our results demonstrate the advantage of combining gene interactions extracted from the literature in the form of semantic relations with microarray analysis in generating contribution-weighted gene regulatory networks. This methodology can make a significant contribution to understanding the complex interactions involved in cellular behavior and molecular physiology.

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Integrating quantitative knowledge into a qualitative gene regulatory network.

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Integrating quantitative knowledge into a qualitative gene regulatory network.

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