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Defilippo A, Veltri P, Lió P, Guzzi PH. Leveraging graph neural networks for supporting automatic triage of patients. Sci Rep 2024; 14:12548. [PMID: 38822012 PMCID: PMC11143315 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-63376-2] [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: 03/21/2024] [Accepted: 05/28/2024] [Indexed: 06/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Patient triage is crucial in emergency departments, ensuring timely and appropriate care based on correctly evaluating the emergency grade of patient conditions. Triage methods are generally performed by human operator based on her own experience and information that are gathered from the patient management process. Thus, it is a process that can generate errors in emergency-level associations. Recently, Traditional triage methods heavily rely on human decisions, which can be subjective and prone to errors. A growing interest has recently been focused on leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to develop algorithms to maximize information gathering and minimize errors in patient triage processing. We define and implement an AI-based module to manage patients' emergency code assignments in emergency departments. It uses historical data from the emergency department to train the medical decision-making process. Data containing relevant patient information, such as vital signs, symptoms, and medical history, accurately classify patients into triage categories. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieved high accuracy outperforming traditional triage methods. By using the proposed method, we claim that healthcare professionals can predict severity index to guide patient management processing and resource allocation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annamaria Defilippo
- Dept. Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Pierangelo Veltri
- DIMES Department of Informatics, Modeling, Electronics and Systems, UNICAL, Rende, Cosenza, Italy
| | - Pietro Lió
- Department of Computer Science and Technology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Dept. Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy.
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2
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Tradigo G, Das JK, Vizza P, Roy S, Guzzi PH, Veltri P. Strategies and Trends in COVID-19 Vaccination Delivery: What We Learn and What We May Use for the Future. Vaccines (Basel) 2023; 11:1496. [PMID: 37766172 PMCID: PMC10535057 DOI: 10.3390/vaccines11091496] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2023] [Revised: 09/03/2023] [Accepted: 09/13/2023] [Indexed: 09/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Vaccination has been the most effective way to control the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The numbers and types of vaccines have reached considerable proportions, even if the question of vaccine procedures and frequency still needs to be resolved. We have come to learn the necessity of defining vaccination distribution strategies with regard to COVID-19 that could be used for any future pandemics of similar gravity. In fact, vaccine monitoring implies the existence of a strategy that should be measurable in terms of input and output, based on a mathematical model, including death rates, the spread of infections, symptoms, hospitalization, and so on. This paper addresses the issue of vaccine diffusion and strategies for monitoring the pandemic. It provides a description of the importance and take up of vaccines and the links between procedures and the containment of COVID-19 variants, as well as the long-term effects. Finally, the paper focuses on the global scenario in a world undergoing profound social and political change, with particular attention on current and future health provision. This contribution would represent an example of vaccination experiences, which can be useful in other pandemic or epidemiological contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giuseppe Tradigo
- Department of Computer Science, eCampus University, 22060 Novedrate, Italy;
| | - Jayanta Kumar Das
- Longitudinal Studies Section, Translation Gerontology Branch, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA;
| | - Patrizia Vizza
- Department of Surgical and Medical Science, Magna Græcia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy;
| | - Swarup Roy
- Network Reconstruction & Analysis (NetRA) Lab, Department of Computer Applications, Sikkim University, Gangtok 737102, India;
| | - Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Science, Magna Græcia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy;
| | - Pierangelo Veltri
- Department of Computer Science, Modelling, Electronics and Systems, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy;
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3
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Lomoio U, Puccio B, Tradigo G, Guzzi PH, Veltri P. SARS-CoV-2 protein structure and sequence mutations: Evolutionary analysis and effects on virus variants. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0283400. [PMID: 37471335 PMCID: PMC10358949 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283400] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2023] [Accepted: 07/04/2023] [Indexed: 07/22/2023] Open
Abstract
The structure and sequence of proteins strongly influence their biological functions. New models and algorithms can help researchers in understanding how the evolution of sequences and structures is related to changes in functions. Recently, studies of SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein structures have been performed to predict binding receptors and infection activity in COVID-19, hence the scientific interest in the effects of virus mutations due to sequence, structure and vaccination arises. However, there is the need for models and tools to study the links between the evolution of S protein sequence, structure and functions, and virus transmissibility and the effects of vaccination. As studies on S protein have been generated a large amount of relevant information, we propose in this work to use Protein Contact Networks (PCNs) to relate protein structures with biological properties by means of network topology properties. Topological properties are used to compare the structural changes with sequence changes. We find that both node centrality and community extraction analysis can be used to relate protein stability and functionality with sequence mutations. Starting from this we compare structural evolution to sequence changes and study mutations from a temporal perspective focusing on virus variants. Finally by applying our model to the Omicron variant we report a timeline correlation between Omicron and the vaccination campaign.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ugo Lomoio
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Barbara Puccio
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | | | - Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
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4
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Milano M, Cinaglia P, Guzzi PH, Cannataro M. Aligning Cross-Species Interactomes for Studying Complex and Chronic Diseases. Life (Basel) 2023; 13:1520. [PMID: 37511895 PMCID: PMC10381714 DOI: 10.3390/life13071520] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2023] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 07/05/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are a group of complex disorders characterized by the progressive degeneration and dysfunction of neurons in the central nervous system. NDs encompass many conditions, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex disease affecting almost forty million people worldwide. AD is characterized by a progressive decline of cognitive functions related to the loss of connections between nerve cells caused by the prevalence of extracellular Aβ plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles plaques. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that primarily affects the movement of an individual. The exact cause of Parkinson's disease is not fully understood, but it is believed to involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Some cases of PD are linked to mutations in the LRRK2, PARKIN and other genes, which are associated with familial forms of the disease. Different research studies have applied the Protein Protein Interaction (PPI) networks to understand different aspects of disease progression. For instance, Caenorhabditis elegans is widely used as a model organism for the study of AD due to roughly 38% of its genes having a human ortholog. This study's goal consists of comparing PPI network of C. elegans and human by applying computational techniques, widely used for the analysis of PPI networks between species, such as Local Network Alignment (LNA). For this aim, we used L-HetNetAligner algorithm to build a local alignment among two PPI networks, i.e., C. elegans and human PPI networks associated with AD and PD built-in silicon. The results show that L-HetNetAligner can find local alignments representing functionally related subregions. In conclusion, since local alignment enables the extraction of functionally related modules, the method can be used to study complex disease progression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marianna Milano
- Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
- Data Analytics Research Center, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Pietro Cinaglia
- Data Analytics Research Center, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
- Department of Health Sciences, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Data Analytics Research Center, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
- Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Mario Cannataro
- Data Analytics Research Center, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
- Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University Magna Græcia, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
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5
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Guzzi PH, Cortese F, Mannino GC, Pedace E, Succurro E, Andreozzi F, Veltri P. Analysis of age-dependent gene-expression in human tissues for studying diabetes comorbidities. Sci Rep 2023; 13:10372. [PMID: 37365269 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37550-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2023] [Accepted: 06/23/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023] Open
Abstract
The study of the relationship between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) disease and other pathologies (comorbidities), together with patient age variation, poses a challenge for medical research. There is evidence that patients affected by T2DM are more likely to develop comorbidities as they grow older. Variation of gene expression can be correlated to changes in T2DM comorbidities insurgence and progression. Understanding gene expression changes requires the analysis of large heterogeneous data at different scales as well as the integration of different data sources into network medicine models. Hence, we designed a framework to shed light on uncertainties related to age effects and comorbidity by integrating existing data sources with novel algorithms. The framework is based on integrating and analysing existing data sources under the hypothesis that changes in the basal expression of genes may be responsible for the higher prevalence of comorbidities in older patients. Using the proposed framework, we selected genes related to comorbidities from existing databases, and then analysed their expression with age at the tissues level. We found a set of genes that changes significantly in certain specific tissues over time. We also reconstructed the associated protein interaction networks and the related pathways for each tissue. Using this mechanistic framework, we detected interesting pathways related to T2DM whose genes change their expression with age. We also found many pathways related to insulin regulation and brain activities, which can be used to develop specific therapies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that analyses such genes at the tissue level together with age variations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy.
| | - Francesca Cortese
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Gaia Chiara Mannino
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Elisabetta Pedace
- Internal Medicine Unit, ASP Catanzaro, Soverato Hospital, Soverato, Italy
| | - Elena Succurro
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy
- Internal Medicine Unit, R. Dulbecco Hospital, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Francesco Andreozzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy
- Internal Medicine Unit, R. Dulbecco Hospital, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy
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6
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Guzzi PH, di Paola L, Puccio B, Lomoio U, Giuliani A, Veltri P. Computational analysis of the sequence-structure relation in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein using protein contact networks. Sci Rep 2023; 13:2837. [PMID: 36808182 PMCID: PMC9936485 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-30052-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Accepted: 02/15/2023] [Indexed: 02/19/2023] Open
Abstract
The structure of proteins impacts directly on the function they perform. Mutations in the primary sequence can provoke structural changes with consequent modification of functional properties. SARS-CoV-2 proteins have been extensively studied during the pandemic. This wide dataset, related to sequence and structure, has enabled joint sequence-structure analysis. In this work, we focus on the SARS-CoV-2 S (Spike) protein and the relations between sequence mutations and structure variations, in order to shed light on the structural changes stemming from the position of mutated amino acid residues in three different SARS-CoV-2 strains. We propose the use of protein contact network (PCN) formalism to: (i) obtain a global metric space and compare various molecular entities, (ii) give a structural explanation of the observed phenotype, and (iii) provide context dependent descriptors of single mutations. PCNs have been used to compare sequence and structure of the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants, and we found that omicron has a unique mutational pattern leading to different structural consequences from mutations of other strains. The non-random distribution of changes in network centrality along the chain has allowed to shed light on the structural (and functional) consequences of mutations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy.
| | - Luisa di Paola
- grid.9657.d0000 0004 1757 5329Unit of Chemical-Physics Fundamentals in Chemical Engineering, Department of Engineering, Universita Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, via Alvaro del Portillo 21, 00128 Rome, Italy
| | - Barbara Puccio
- grid.411489.10000 0001 2168 2547Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Ugo Lomoio
- grid.411489.10000 0001 2168 2547Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Alessandro Giuliani
- grid.416651.10000 0000 9120 6856Environment and Health Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Rome, Italy
| | - Pierangelo Veltri
- grid.411489.10000 0001 2168 2547Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy ,grid.7778.f0000 0004 1937 0319Department of Computer, Modeling, Electronics and System Engineering, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy
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7
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Structural analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein variants through graph embedding. NETWORK MODELING AND ANALYSIS IN HEALTH INFORMATICS AND BIOINFORMATICS 2023; 12:3. [PMID: 36506261 PMCID: PMC9718452 DOI: 10.1007/s13721-022-00397-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2022] [Revised: 10/21/2022] [Accepted: 11/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
Abstract
Since December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has affected almost all countries. The unprecedented spreading of this virus has led to the insurgence of many variants that impact protein sequence and structure that need continuous monitoring and analysis of the sequences to understand the genetic evolution and to prevent possible dangerous outcomes. Some variants causing the modification of the structure of the proteins, such as the Spike protein S, need to be monitored. Protein contact networks (PCNs) have been recently proposed as a modelling framework for protein structures. In such a framework, the protein structure is represented as an unweighted graph whose nodes are the central atoms of the backbones (C- α ), and edges connect two atoms falling in the spatial distance between 4 and 7 Å. PCN may also be a data-rich representation since we may add to each node/atom biological and topological information. Such formalism enables the possibility of using algorithms from graph theory to analyze the graph. In particular, we refer to graph embedding methods enabling the analysis of such graphs with deep learning methods. In this work, we explore the possibility of embedding PCN using Graph Neural Networks and then analyze in the embedded space each residue to distinguish mutated residues from non-mutated ones. In particular, we analyzed the structure of the Spike protein of the coronavirus. First, we obtained the PCNs of the Spike protein for the wild-type, α , β , and δ variants. Then we used the GraphSage embedding algorithm to obtain an unsupervised embedding. Then we analyzed the point of mutation in the embedded space. Results show the characteristics of the mutation point in the embedding space.
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8
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Hosseinzadeh MM, Cannataro M, Guzzi PH, Dondi R. Temporal networks in biology and medicine: a survey on models, algorithms, and tools. NETWORK MODELING AND ANALYSIS IN HEALTH INFORMATICS AND BIOINFORMATICS 2022; 12:10. [PMID: 36618274 PMCID: PMC9803903 DOI: 10.1007/s13721-022-00406-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2022] [Revised: 12/16/2022] [Accepted: 12/17/2022] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
The use of static graphs for modelling and analysis of biological and biomedical data plays a key role in biomedical research. However, many real-world scenarios present dynamic behaviours resulting in both node and edges modification as well as feature evolution. Consequently, ad-hoc models for capturing these evolutions along the time have been introduced, also referred to as dynamic, temporal, time-varying graphs. Here, we focus on temporal graphs, i.e., graphs whose evolution is represented by a sequence of time-ordered snapshots. Each snapshot represents a graph active in a particular timestamp. We survey temporal graph models and related algorithms, presenting fundamentals aspects and the recent advances. We formally define temporal graphs, focusing on the problem setting and we present their main applications in biology and medicine. We also present temporal graph embedding and the application to recent problems such as epidemic modelling. Finally, we further state some promising research directions in the area. Main results of this study include a systematic review of fundamental temporal network problems and their algorithmic solutions considered in the literature, in particular those having application in computational biology and medicine. We also include the main software developed in this context.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mario Cannataro
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences and Data Analytics Research Center, University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences and Data Analytics Research Center, University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Riccardo Dondi
- Department of Literature, Philosophy, Communication Studies, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
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9
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Mercatelli D, Cabrelle C, Veltri P, Giorgi FM, Guzzi PH. Detection of pan-cancer surface protein biomarkers via a network-based approach on transcriptomics data. Brief Bioinform 2022; 23:6695270. [DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbac400] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2022] [Revised: 07/28/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
Cell surface proteins have been used as diagnostic and prognostic markers in cancer research and as targets for the development of anticancer agents. Many of these proteins lie at the top of signaling cascades regulating cell responses and gene expression, therefore acting as ‘signaling hubs’. It has been previously demonstrated that the integrated network analysis on transcriptomic data is able to infer cell surface protein activity in breast cancer. Such an approach has been implemented in a publicly available method called ‘SURFACER’. SURFACER implements a network-based analysis of transcriptomic data focusing on the overall activity of curated surface proteins, with the final aim to identify those proteins driving major phenotypic changes at a network level, named surface signaling hubs. Here, we show the ability of SURFACER to discover relevant knowledge within and across cancer datasets. We also show how different cancers can be stratified in surface-activity-specific groups. Our strategy may identify cancer-wide markers to design targeted therapies and biomarker-based diagnostic approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniele Mercatelli
- Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna , 40138 Bologna , Italy
| | - Chiara Cabrelle
- Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna , 40138 Bologna , Italy
| | - Pierangelo Veltri
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University , 88100 Catanzaro , Italy
| | - Federico M Giorgi
- Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna , 40138 Bologna , Italy
| | - Pietro H Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University , 88100 Catanzaro , Italy
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10
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Milano M, Guzzi PH, Cannataro M. Design and Implementation of a New Local Alignment Algorithm for Multilayer Networks. ENTROPY (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 24:1272. [PMID: 36141158 PMCID: PMC9497667 DOI: 10.3390/e24091272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2022] [Revised: 09/06/2022] [Accepted: 09/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Network alignment (NA) is a popular research field that aims to develop algorithms for comparing networks. Applications of network alignment span many fields, from biology to social network analysis. NA comes in two forms: global network alignment (GNA), which aims to find a global similarity, and LNA, which aims to find local regions of similarity. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in introducing complex network models such as multilayer networks. Multilayer networks are common in many application scenarios, such as modelling of relations among people in a social network or representing the interplay of different molecules in a cell or different cells in the brain. Consequently, the need to introduce algorithms for the comparison of such multilayer networks, i.e., local network alignment, arises. Existing algorithms for LNA do not perform well on multilayer networks since they cannot consider inter-layer edges. Thus, we propose local alignment of multilayer networks (MultiLoAl), a novel algorithm for the local alignment of multilayer networks. We define the local alignment of multilayer networks and propose a heuristic for solving it. We present an extensive assessment indicating the strength of the algorithm. Furthermore, we implemented a synthetic multilayer network generator to build the data for the algorithm's evaluation.
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11
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Guzzi PH, Di Paola L, Giuliani A, Veltri P. PCN-Miner: an open-source extensible tool for the analysis of Protein Contact Networks. Bioinformatics 2022; 38:4235-4237. [PMID: 35799364 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btac450] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2022] [Revised: 06/14/2022] [Accepted: 07/04/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Protein Contact Network (PCN) is a powerful method for analysing the structure and function of proteins, with a specific focus on disclosing the molecular features of allosteric regulation through the discovery of modular substructures. The importance of PCN analysis has been shown in many contexts, such as the analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and its complexes with the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) human receptors. Even if there exist many software tools implementing such methods, there is a growing need for the introduction of tools integrating existing approaches. RESULTS We present PCN-Miner, a software tool implemented in the Python programming language, able to (i) import protein structures from the Protein Data Bank; (ii) generate the corresponding PCN; (iii) model, analyse and visualize PCNs and related protein structures by using a set of known algorithms and metrics. The PCN-Miner can cover a large set of applications: from clustering to embedding and subsequent analysis. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The PCN-Miner tool is freely available at the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/hguzzi/ProteinContactNetworks. It is also available in the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
| | - Luisa Di Paola
- Unit of Chemical-Physics Fundamentals in Chemical Engineering, Department of Engineering, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, 00128 Rome, Italy
| | - Alessandro Giuliani
- Environment and Health Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 00161Rome, Italy
| | - Pierangelo Veltri
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
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12
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A Novel Algorithm for Local Network Alignment Based on Network Embedding. APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/app12115403] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/10/2022]
Abstract
Networks are widely used in bioinformatics and biomedicine to represent associations across a large class of biological entities. Network alignment refers to the set of approaches that aim to reveal similarities among networks. Local Network Alignment (LNA) algorithms find (relatively small) local regions of similarity between two or more networks. Such algorithms are in general based on a set of seed nodes that are used to build the alignment incrementally. A large fraction of LNA algorithms uses a set of vertices based on context information as seed nodes, even if this may cause a bias or a data-circularity problem. Moreover, using topology information to choose seed nodes improves overall alignment. Finally, similarities among nodes can be identified by network embedding methods (or representation learning). Given there are two networks, we propose to use network embedding to capture structural similarity among nodes, which can also be used to improve LNA effectiveness. We present an algorithm and experimental tests on real and syntactic graph data to find LNAs.
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13
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Petrizzelli F, Guzzi PH, Mazza T. Beyond COVID-19 Pandemic: Topology-aware optimization of vaccination strategy for minimizing virus spreading. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2022; 20:2664-2671. [PMID: 35664237 PMCID: PMC9135485 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.05.040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2022] [Revised: 05/19/2022] [Accepted: 05/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Paper discusses the relevance of the adoption of ad-hoc vaccination strategies. Paper shows how to evaluate the impact of different vaccination strategy by considering network-based models. Tailored interventions, e.g., vaccination, applied on central nodes of these networks may efficiently stop the propagation of an infection. The way node "centrality" is defined is the key to curb infection spreading.
The mitigation of an infectious disease spreading has recently gained considerable attention from the research community. It may be obtained by adopting sanitary measurements (e.g., vaccination, wearing masks), social rules (e.g., social distancing), together with an extensive vaccination campaign. Vaccination is currently the primary way for mitigating the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak without severe lockdown. Its effectiveness also depends on the number and timeliness of administrations and thus demands strict prioritization criteria. Almost all countries have prioritized similar classes of exposed workers: healthcare professionals and the elderly, obtaining to maximize the survival of patients and years of life saved. Nevertheless, the virus is currently spreading at high rates, and any prioritization criterion so far adopted did not account for the structural organization of the contact networks. We reckon that a network where nodes are people while the edges represent their social contacts may efficiently model the virus’s spreading. It is known that tailored interventions (e.g., vaccination) on central nodes may efficiently stop the propagation, thereby eliminating the “bridge edges.” We then introduce such a model and consider both synthetic and real datasets. We present the benefits of a topology-aware versus an age-based vaccination strategy to mitigate the spreading of the virus. The code is available at https://github.com/mazzalab/playgrounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Petrizzelli
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Fondazione IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, Viale Capuccini, 71013 S. Giovanni Rotondo, Fg, Italy
| | - Pietro Hiram Guzzi
- Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Campus S Venuta, 88100, Italy
- Corresponding authors.
| | - Tommaso Mazza
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Fondazione IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, Viale Capuccini, 71013 S. Giovanni Rotondo, Fg, Italy
- Corresponding authors.
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