Dataset Information

A recursively partitioned mixture model for clustering time-course gene expression data.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Longitudinally collected gene expression data provides an opportunity to investigate the dynamic behavior of gene expression and is crucial for establishing causal links between changes on a molecular level and disease development and progression. In terms of the analysis of such data, clustering of subjects based on time-course expression data may improve our understanding of temporal expression patterns that result in disease phenotypes. Although there are numerous existing methods for clustering subjects using gene expression data, most are not suitable when expression measurements are repeatedly collected over a time-course. METHODS:We present a modified version of the recursively partitioned mixture model (RPMM) for clustering subjects based on longitudinally collected gene expression data. In the proposed time-course RPMM (TC-RPMM), subjects are clustered on the basis of their temporal profiles of gene expression using a mixture of mixed effects models framework. This framework captures changes in gene expression over time and models the autocorrelation between repeated gene expression measurements for the same subject. We assessed the performance of TC-RPMM using extensive simulation studies and a dataset from a multi-center research study of inflammation and response to injury (www.gluegrant.org), which consisted of time-course gene expression data for 140 subjects. RESULTS:Our simulation studies encompassed several different scenarios and were aimed at assessing the ability of TC-RPMM to correctly recover true class memberships when the expression trajectories that characterized those classes differed. Overall, our simulation studies revealed favorable performance of TC-RPMM compared to competing approaches, however clustering performance was observed to be highly dependent on the proportion of class discriminating genes used in clustering analysis. When applied to real epidemiologic data with repeated-measures, longitudinal gene expression measurements, TC-RPMM identified clusters that had strong biological and clinical significance. CONCLUSIONS:Methods for clustering subjects based on temporal gene expression profiles is a high priority for molecular biology and bioinformatics research. Along these lines, the proposed TC-RPMM represents a promising new approach for analyzing time-course gene expression data.

SUBMITTER: Koestler DC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4208690 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A recursively partitioned mixture model for clustering time-course gene expression data.

Koestler Devin C DC Marsit Carmen J CJ Christensen Brock C BC Kelsey Karl T KT Houseman E Andres EA

Translational cancer research 20140101 3

<h4>Background</h4>Longitudinally collected gene expression data provides an opportunity to investigate the dynamic behavior of gene expression and is crucial for establishing causal links between changes on a molecular level and disease development and progression. In terms of the analysis of such data, clustering of subjects based on time-course expression data may improve our understanding of temporal expression patterns that result in disease phenotypes. Although there are numerous existing ...[more]

PMID: 25346887

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Project description:BackgroundTight clustering arose recently from a desire to obtain tighter and potentially more informative clusters in gene expression studies. Scattered genes with relatively loose correlations should be excluded from the clusters. However, in the literature there is little work dedicated to this area of research. On the other hand, there has been extensive use of maximum likelihood techniques for model parameter estimation. By contrast, the minimum distance estimator has been largely ignored.ResultsIn this paper we show the inherent robustness of the minimum distance estimator that makes it a powerful tool for parameter estimation in model-based time-course clustering. To apply minimum distance estimation, a partial mixture model that can naturally incorporate replicate information and allow scattered genes is formulated. We provide experimental results of simulated data fitting, where the minimum distance estimator demonstrates superior performance to the maximum likelihood estimator. Both biological and statistical validations are conducted on a simulated dataset and two real gene expression datasets. Our proposed partial regression clustering algorithm scores top in Gene Ontology driven evaluation, in comparison with four other popular clustering algorithms.ConclusionFor the first time partial mixture model is successfully extended to time-course data analysis. The robustness of our partial regression clustering algorithm proves the suitability of the combination of both partial mixture model and minimum distance estimator in this field. We show that tight clustering not only is capable to generate more profound understanding of the dataset under study well in accordance to established biological knowledge, but also presents interesting new hypotheses during interpretation of clustering results. In particular, we provide biological evidences that scattered genes can be relevant and are interesting subjects for study, in contrast to prevailing opinion.

Dataset Information

A recursively partitioned mixture model for clustering time-course gene expression data.

Publications

A recursively partitioned mixture model for clustering time-course gene expression data.

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