Predicting protein functions from PPI networks using functional aggregation

A Deep Learning Framework for Predicting Protein Functions With Co-Occurrence of GO Terms

The understanding of protein functions is critical to many biological problems such as the development of new drugs and new crops. To reduce the huge gap between the increase of protein sequences and annotations of protein functions, many methods have been proposed to deal with this problem. These methods use Gene Ontology (GO) to classify the functions of proteins and consider one GO term as a class label. However, they ignore the co-occurrence of GO terms that is helpful for protein function prediction. We propose a new deep learning model, named DeepPFP-CO, which uses Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) to explore and capture the co-occurrence of GO terms to improve the protein function prediction performance. In this way, we can further deduce the protein functions by fusing the predicted propensity of the center function and its co-occurrence functions. We use Fmax and AUPR to evaluate the performance of DeepPFP-CO and compare DeepPFP-CO with state-of-the-art methods such as DeepGOPlus and DeepGOA. The computational results show that DeepPFP-CO outperforms DeepGOPlus and other methods. Moreover, we further analyze our model at the protein level. The results have demonstrated that DeepPFP-CO improves the performance of protein function prediction. DeepPFP-CO is available at https://csuligroup.com/DeepPFP/.

Large-scale identification of human protein function using topological features of interaction network

The annotation of protein function is a vital step to elucidate the essence of life at a molecular level, and it is also meritorious in biomedical and pharmaceutical industry. Developments of sequencing technology result in constant expansion of the gap between the number of the known sequences and their functions. Therefore, it is indispensable to develop a computational method for the annotation of protein function. Herein, a novel method is proposed to identify protein function based on the weighted human protein-protein interaction network and graph theory. The network topology features with local and global information are presented to characterise proteins. The minimum redundancy maximum relevance algorithm is used to select 227 optimized feature subsets and support vector machine technique is utilized to build the prediction models. The performance of current method is assessed through 10-fold cross-validation test, and the range of accuracies is from 67.63% to 100%. Comparing with other annotation methods, the proposed way possesses a 50% improvement in the predictive accuracy. Generally, such network topology features provide insights into the relationship between protein functions and network architectures. The source code of Matlab is freely available on request from the authors.

Prediction of protein-protein interaction network using a multi-objective optimization approach

Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs) are very important as they coordinate almost all cellular processes. This paper attempts to formulate PPI prediction problem in a multi-objective optimization framework. The scoring functions for the trial solution deal with simultaneous maximization of functional similarity, strength of the domain interaction profiles, and the number of common neighbors of the proteins predicted to be interacting. The above optimization problem is solved using the proposed Firefly Algorithm with Nondominated Sorting. Experiments undertaken reveal that the proposed PPI prediction technique outperforms existing methods, including gene ontology-based Relative Specific Similarity, multi-domain-based Domain Cohesion Coupling method, domain-based Random Decision Forest method, Bagging with REP Tree, and evolutionary/swarm algorithm-based approaches, with respect to sensitivity, specificity, and F1 score.

Protein-protein interaction prediction by combined analysis of genomic and conservation information

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are highly important because of their main role in cellular processes and biochemical pathways; therefore, PPI can be very useful in the prediction of protein functions. Experimental techniques of PPI detection have certain drawbacks; hence computational methods can be used to complement wet lab techniques. Such methods can be applied to PPI prediction as well as validation of experimental results. Computational algorithms can lead to many false PPI predictions, which in turn result in non-adequate performance. We have developed a novel method based on combined analysis, entitled PPIccc. Three different descriptors for PPIccc included gene co-expression values, codon usage similarity and conservation of surface residues between protein products of a gene pair, which combined to predict PPI. Validation of results based on Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD) indicated improvement of performance in our proposed method. The results also revealed that conservation of surface residues between proteins in combination with codon usage similarity of their related genes increase the performance of PPI prediction. This means that codon usage similarity and surface residues between proteins (only sequence-based features) can predict PPIs as good as PPIccc.

Interlog protein network: an evolutionary benchmark of protein interaction networks for the evaluation of clustering algorithms

BACKGROUND

In the field of network science, exploring principal and crucial modules or communities is critical in the deduction of relationships and organization of complex networks. This approach expands an arena, and thus allows further study of biological functions in the field of network biology. As the clustering algorithms that are currently employed in finding modules have innate uncertainties, external and internal validations are necessary.

METHODS

Sequence and network structure alignment, has been used to define the Interlog Protein Network (IPN). This network is an evolutionarily conserved network with communal nodes and less false-positive links. In the current study, the IPN is employed as an evolution-based benchmark in the validation of the module finding methods. The clustering results of five algorithms; Markov Clustering (MCL), Restricted Neighborhood Search Clustering (RNSC), Cartographic Representation (CR), Laplacian Dynamics (LD) and Genetic Algorithm; to find communities in Protein-Protein Interaction networks (GAPPI) are assessed by IPN in four distinct Protein-Protein Interaction Networks (PPINs).

RESULTS

The MCL shows a more accurate algorithm based on this evolutionary benchmarking approach. Also, the biological relevance of proteins in the IPN modules generated by MCL is compatible with biological standard databases such as Gene Ontology, KEGG and Reactome.

CONCLUSION

In this study, the IPN shows its potential for validation of clustering algorithms due to its biological logic and straightforward implementation.

Atopic dermatitis-associated protein interaction network lead to new insights in chronic sulfur mustard skin lesion mechanisms

Chronic sulfur mustard skin lesions (CSMSLs) are the most common complications of sulfur mustard exposure; however, its mechanism is not completely understood.According to clinical signs, there are similarities between CSMSL and atopic dermatitis (AD). In this study, proteomic results of AD were reviewed and the AD-associated protein-protein interaction network (PIN) was analyzed. According to centrality measurements, 16 proteins were designated as pivotal elements in AD mechanisms. Interestingly, most of these proteins had been reported in some sulfur mustard-related studies in late and acute phases separately. Based on the gene enrichment analysis, aging, cell response to stress, cancer, Toll- and NOD-like receptor and apoptosis signaling pathways have the greatest impact on the disease. By the analysis of directed protein interaction networks, it is concluded that TNF, IL-6, AKT1, NOS3 and CDKN1A are the most important proteins. It is possible that these proteins play role in the shared complications of AD and CSMSL including xerosis and itching.