Dataset Information

Approximate inference of gene regulatory network models from RNA-Seq time series data.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Inference of gene regulatory network structures from RNA-Seq data is challenging due to the nature of the data, as measurements take the form of counts of reads mapped to a given gene. Here we present a model for RNA-Seq time series data that applies a negative binomial distribution for the observations, and uses sparse regression with a horseshoe prior to learn a dynamic Bayesian network of interactions between genes. We use a variational inference scheme to learn approximate posterior distributions for the model parameters. RESULTS:The methodology is benchmarked on synthetic data designed to replicate the distribution of real world RNA-Seq data. We compare our method to other sparse regression approaches and find improved performance in learning directed networks. We demonstrate an application of our method to a publicly available human neuronal stem cell differentiation RNA-Seq time series data set to infer the underlying network structure. CONCLUSIONS:Our method is able to improve performance on synthetic data by explicitly modelling the statistical distribution of the data when learning networks from RNA-Seq time series. Applying approximate inference techniques we can learn network structures quickly with only moderate computing resources.

SUBMITTER: Thorne T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5896118 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Approximate inference of gene regulatory network models from RNA-Seq time series data.

Thorne Thomas T

BMC bioinformatics 20180411 1

<h4>Background</h4>Inference of gene regulatory network structures from RNA-Seq data is challenging due to the nature of the data, as measurements take the form of counts of reads mapped to a given gene. Here we present a model for RNA-Seq time series data that applies a negative binomial distribution for the observations, and uses sparse regression with a horseshoe prior to learn a dynamic Bayesian network of interactions between genes. We use a variational inference scheme to learn approximate ...[more]

PMID: 29642837

Similar Datasets

Project description:Dynamic expression data, nowadays obtained using high-throughput RNA sequencing, are essential to monitor transient gene expression changes and to study the dynamics of their transcriptional activity in the cell or response to stimuli. Several methods for data selection, clustering and functional analysis are available; however, these steps are usually performed independently, without exploiting and integrating the information derived from each step of the analysis.Here we present FunPat, an R package for time series RNA sequencing data that integrates gene selection, clustering and functional annotation into a single framework. FunPat exploits functional annotations by performing for each functional term, e.g. a Gene Ontology term, an integrated selection-clustering analysis to select differentially expressed genes that share, besides annotation, a common dynamic expression profile.FunPat performance was assessed on both simulated and real data. With respect to a stand-alone selection step, the integration of the clustering step is able to improve the recall without altering the false discovery rate. FunPat also shows high precision and recall in detecting the correct temporal expression patterns; in particular, the recall is significantly higher than hierarchical, k-means and a model-based clustering approach specifically designed for RNA sequencing data. Moreover, when biological replicates are missing, FunPat is able to provide reproducible lists of significant genes. The application to real time series expression data shows the ability of FunPat to select differentially expressed genes with high reproducibility, indirectly confirming high precision and recall in gene selection. Moreover, the expression patterns obtained as output allow an easy interpretation of the results.A novel analysis pipeline was developed to search the main temporal patterns in classes of genes similarly annotated, improving the sensitivity of gene selection by integrating the statistical evidence of differential expression with the information on temporal profiles and the functional annotations. Significant genes are associated to both the most informative functional terms, avoiding redundancy of information, and the most representative temporal patterns, thus improving the readability of the results. FunPat package is provided in R/Bioconductor at link: http://sysbiobig.dei.unipd.it/?q=node/79.

Project description:The inference of regulatory interactions and quantitative models of gene regulation from time-series transcriptomics data has been extensively studied and applied to a range of problems in drug discovery, cancer research, and biotechnology. The application of existing methods is commonly based on implicit assumptions on the biological processes under study. First, the measurements of mRNA abundance obtained in transcriptomics experiments are taken to be representative of protein concentrations. Second, the observed changes in gene expression are assumed to be solely due to transcription factors and other specific regulators, while changes in the activity of the gene expression machinery and other global physiological effects are neglected. While convenient in practice, these assumptions are often not valid and bias the reverse engineering process. Here we systematically investigate, using a combination of models and experiments, the importance of this bias and possible corrections. We measure in real time and in vivo the activity of genes involved in the FliA-FlgM module of the E. coli motility network. From these data, we estimate protein concentrations and global physiological effects by means of kinetic models of gene expression. Our results indicate that correcting for the bias of commonly-made assumptions improves the quality of the models inferred from the data. Moreover, we show by simulation that these improvements are expected to be even stronger for systems in which protein concentrations have longer half-lives and the activity of the gene expression machinery varies more strongly across conditions than in the FliA-FlgM module. The approach proposed in this study is broadly applicable when using time-series transcriptome data to learn about the structure and dynamics of regulatory networks. In the case of the FliA-FlgM module, our results demonstrate the importance of global physiological effects and the active regulation of FliA and FlgM half-lives for the dynamics of FliA-dependent promoters.

Dataset Information

Approximate inference of gene regulatory network models from RNA-Seq time series data.

Publications

Approximate inference of gene regulatory network models from RNA-Seq time series data.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets