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Wei PJ, Bao JJ, Gao Z, Tan JY, Cao RF, Su Y, Zheng CH, Deng L. MEFFGRN: Matrix enhancement and feature fusion-based method for reconstructing the gene regulatory network of epithelioma papulosum cyprini cells by spring viremia of carp virus infection. Comput Biol Med 2024; 179:108835. [PMID: 38996550 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.108835] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2024] [Revised: 06/05/2024] [Accepted: 06/29/2024] [Indexed: 07/14/2024]
Abstract
Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are crucial for understanding organismal molecular mechanisms and processes. Construction of GRN in the epithelioma papulosum cyprini (EPC) cells of cyprinid fish by spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) infection helps understand the immune regulatory mechanisms that enhance the survival capabilities of cyprinid fish. Although many computational methods have been used to infer GRNs, specialized approaches for predicting the GRN of EPC cells following SVCV infection are lacking. In addition, most existing methods focus primarily on gene expression features, neglecting the valuable network structural information in known GRNs. In this study, we propose a novel supervised deep neural network, named MEFFGRN (Matrix Enhancement- and Feature Fusion-based method for Gene Regulatory Network inference), to accurately predict the GRN of EPC cells following SVCV infection. MEFFGRN considers both gene expression data and network structure information of known GRN and introduces a matrix enhancement method to address the sparsity issue of known GRN, extracting richer network structure information. To optimize the benefits of CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) in image processing, gene expression and enhanced GRN data were transformed into histogram images for each gene pair respectively. Subsequently, these histograms were separately fed into CNNs for training to obtain the corresponding gene expression and network structural features. Furthermore, a feature fusion mechanism was introduced to comprehensively integrate the gene expression and network structural features. This integration considers the specificity of each feature and their interactive information, resulting in a more comprehensive and precise feature representation during the fusion process. Experimental results from both real-world and benchmark datasets demonstrate that MEFFGRN achieves competitive performance compared with state-of-the-art computational methods. Furthermore, study findings from SVCV-infected EPC cells suggest that MEFFGRN can predict novel gene regulatory relationships.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pi-Jing Wei
- Key Laboratory of Intelligent Computing & Signal Processing of Ministry of Education, Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China
| | - Jin-Jin Bao
- Key Laboratory of Intelligent Computing & Signal Processing of Ministry of Education, School of Computer Science and Technology, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China
| | - Zhen Gao
- Key Laboratory of Intelligent Computing & Signal Processing of Ministry of Education, School of Computer Science and Technology, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China
| | - Jing-Yun Tan
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Microbial Genetic Engineering, College of Life Sciences and Oceanology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518055, Guangdong, China
| | - Rui-Fen Cao
- Key Laboratory of Intelligent Computing & Signal Processing of Ministry of Education, School of Computer Science and Technology, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China
| | - Yansen Su
- School of Artificial Intelligence, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China
| | - Chun-Hou Zheng
- School of Artificial Intelligence, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China.
| | - Li Deng
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Microbial Genetic Engineering, College of Life Sciences and Oceanology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518055, Guangdong, China.
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Saha E, Ben Guebila M, Fanfani V, Fischer J, Shutta KH, Mandros P, DeMeo DL, Quackenbush J, Lopes-Ramos CM. Gene regulatory networks reveal sex difference in lung adenocarcinoma. Biol Sex Differ 2024; 15:62. [PMID: 39107837 PMCID: PMC11302009 DOI: 10.1186/s13293-024-00634-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2023] [Accepted: 07/04/2024] [Indexed: 08/10/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) has been observed to have significant sex differences in incidence, prognosis, and response to therapy. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for these disparities have not been investigated extensively. METHODS Sample-specific gene regulatory network methods were used to analyze RNA sequencing data from non-cancerous human lung samples from The Genotype Tissue Expression Project (GTEx) and lung adenocarcinoma primary tumor samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA); results were validated on independent data. RESULTS We found that genes associated with key biological pathways including cell proliferation, immune response and drug metabolism are differentially regulated between males and females in both healthy lung tissue and tumor, and that these regulatory differences are further perturbed by tobacco smoking. We also discovered significant sex bias in transcription factor targeting patterns of clinically actionable oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, including AKT2 and KRAS. Using differentially regulated genes between healthy and tumor samples in conjunction with a drug repurposing tool, we identified several small-molecule drugs that might have sex-biased efficacy as cancer therapeutics and further validated this observation using an independent cell line database. CONCLUSIONS These findings underscore the importance of including sex as a biological variable and considering gene regulatory processes in developing strategies for disease prevention and management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enakshi Saha
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Marouen Ben Guebila
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Viola Fanfani
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Jonas Fischer
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Katherine H Shutta
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Panagiotis Mandros
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Dawn L DeMeo
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - John Quackenbush
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Camila M Lopes-Ramos
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
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Saha E, Guebila MB, Fanfani V, Shutta KH, DeMeo DL, Quackenbush J, Lopes-Ramos CM. Aging-associated Alterations in the Gene Regulatory Network Landscape Associate with Risk, Prognosis and Response to Therapy in Lung Adenocarcinoma. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.07.02.601689. [PMID: 39005266 PMCID: PMC11244978 DOI: 10.1101/2024.07.02.601689] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/16/2024]
Abstract
Aging is the primary risk factor for many individual cancer types, including lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). To understand how aging-related alterations in the regulation of key cellular processes might affect LUAD risk and survival outcomes, we built individual (person)-specific gene regulatory networks integrating gene expression, transcription factor protein-protein interaction, and sequence motif data, using PANDA/LIONESS algorithms, for both non-cancerous lung tissue samples from the Genotype Tissue Expression (GTEx) project and LUAD samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). In GTEx, we found that pathways involved in cell proliferation and immune response are increasingly targeted by regulatory transcription factors with age; these aging-associated alterations are accelerated by tobacco smoking and resemble oncogenic shifts in the regulatory landscape observed in LUAD and suggests that dysregulation of aging pathways might be associated with an increased risk of LUAD. Comparing normal adjacent samples from individuals with LUAD with healthy lung tissue samples from those without LUAD, we found that aging-associated genes show greater aging-biased targeting patterns in younger individuals with LUAD compared to their healthy counterparts of similar age, a pattern suggestive of age acceleration. This implies that an accelerated aging process may be responsible for tumor incidence in younger individuals. Using drug repurposing tool CLUEreg, we found small molecule drugs with potential geroprotective effects that may alter the accelerating aging profiles we found. We also observed that, in contrast to chronological age, a network-informed aging signature was associated with survival and response to chemotherapy in LUAD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enakshi Saha
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Marouen Ben Guebila
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Viola Fanfani
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Katherine H Shutta
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
| | - Dawn L DeMeo
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - John Quackenbush
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Camila M Lopes-Ramos
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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Saha E, Guebila MB, Fanfani V, Fischer J, Shutta KH, Mandros P, DeMeo DL, Quackenbush J, Lopes-Ramos CM. Gene regulatory Networks Reveal Sex Difference in Lung Adenocarcinoma. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.09.22.559001. [PMID: 37790409 PMCID: PMC10543009 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.22.559001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/05/2023]
Abstract
Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) has been observed to have significant sex differences in incidence, prognosis, and response to therapy. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for these disparities have not been investigated extensively. Sample-specific gene regulatory network methods were used to analyze RNA sequencing data from non-cancerous human lung samples from The Genotype Tissue Expression Project (GTEx) and lung adenocarcinoma primary tumor samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA); results were validated on independent data. We observe that genes associated with key biological pathways including cell proliferation, immune response and drug metabolism are differentially regulated between males and females in both healthy lung tissue, as well as in tumor, and that these regulatory differences are further perturbed by tobacco smoking. We also uncovered significant sex bias in transcription factor targeting patterns of clinically actionable oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, including AKT2 and KRAS. Using differentially regulated genes between healthy and tumor samples in conjunction with a drug repurposing tool, we identified several small-molecule drugs that might have sex-biased efficacy as cancer therapeutics and further validated this observation using an independent cell line database. These findings underscore the importance of including sex as a biological variable and considering gene regulatory processes in developing strategies for disease prevention and management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enakshi Saha
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Marouen Ben Guebila
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Viola Fanfani
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Jonas Fischer
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Katherine H Shutta
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
| | - Panagiotis Mandros
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Dawn L DeMeo
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - John Quackenbush
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Camila M Lopes-Ramos
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 02115
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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Hasman M, Mayr M, Theofilatos K. Uncovering Protein Networks in Cardiovascular Proteomics. Mol Cell Proteomics 2023; 22:100607. [PMID: 37356494 PMCID: PMC10460687 DOI: 10.1016/j.mcpro.2023.100607] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Revised: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 06/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Biological networks have been widely used in many different diseases to identify potential biomarkers and design drug targets. In the present review, we describe the main computational techniques for reconstructing and analyzing different types of protein networks and summarize the previous applications of such techniques in cardiovascular diseases. Existing tools are critically compared, discussing when each method is preferred such as the use of co-expression networks for functional annotation of protein clusters and the use of directed networks for inferring regulatory associations. Finally, we are presenting examples of reconstructing protein networks of different types (regulatory, co-expression, and protein-protein interaction networks). We demonstrate the necessity to reconstruct networks separately for each cardiovascular tissue type and disease entity and provide illustrative examples of the importance of taking into consideration relevant post-translational modifications. Finally, we demonstrate and discuss how the findings of protein networks could be interpreted using single-cell RNA-sequencing data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Hasman
- King's British Heart Foundation Centre, Kings College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Manuel Mayr
- King's British Heart Foundation Centre, Kings College London, London, United Kingdom
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