1
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Zitnik M, Li MM, Wells A, Glass K, Morselli Gysi D, Krishnan A, Murali TM, Radivojac P, Roy S, Baudot A, Bozdag S, Chen DZ, Cowen L, Devkota K, Gitter A, Gosline SJC, Gu P, Guzzi PH, Huang H, Jiang M, Kesimoglu ZN, Koyuturk M, Ma J, Pico AR, Pržulj N, Przytycka TM, Raphael BJ, Ritz A, Sharan R, Shen Y, Singh M, Slonim DK, Tong H, Yang XH, Yoon BJ, Yu H, Milenković T. Current and future directions in network biology. BIOINFORMATICS ADVANCES 2024; 4:vbae099. [PMID: 39143982 PMCID: PMC11321866 DOI: 10.1093/bioadv/vbae099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2023] [Revised: 05/31/2024] [Accepted: 07/08/2024] [Indexed: 08/16/2024]
Abstract
Summary Network biology is an interdisciplinary field bridging computational and biological sciences that has proved pivotal in advancing the understanding of cellular functions and diseases across biological systems and scales. Although the field has been around for two decades, it remains nascent. It has witnessed rapid evolution, accompanied by emerging challenges. These stem from various factors, notably the growing complexity and volume of data together with the increased diversity of data types describing different tiers of biological organization. We discuss prevailing research directions in network biology, focusing on molecular/cellular networks but also on other biological network types such as biomedical knowledge graphs, patient similarity networks, brain networks, and social/contact networks relevant to disease spread. In more detail, we highlight areas of inference and comparison of biological networks, multimodal data integration and heterogeneous networks, higher-order network analysis, machine learning on networks, and network-based personalized medicine. Following the overview of recent breakthroughs across these five areas, we offer a perspective on future directions of network biology. Additionally, we discuss scientific communities, educational initiatives, and the importance of fostering diversity within the field. This article establishes a roadmap for an immediate and long-term vision for network biology. Availability and implementation Not applicable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marinka Zitnik
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - Michelle M Li
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - Aydin Wells
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
- Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
- Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
| | - Kimberly Glass
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - Deisy Morselli Gysi
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
- Department of Statistics, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná 81530-015, Brazil
- Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - Arjun Krishnan
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, United States
| | - T M Murali
- Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, United States
| | - Predrag Radivojac
- Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - Sushmita Roy
- Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715, United States
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Madison, WI 53715, United States
| | - Anaïs Baudot
- Aix Marseille Université, INSERM, MMG, Marseille, France
| | - Serdar Bozdag
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, United States
- Department of Mathematics, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, United States
| | - Danny Z Chen
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
| | - Lenore Cowen
- Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, United States
| | - Kapil Devkota
- Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, United States
| | - Anthony Gitter
- Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715, United States
- Morgridge Institute for Research, Madison, WI 53715, United States
| | - Sara J C Gosline
- Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Seattle, WA 98109, United States
| | - Pengfei Gu
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
| | - Pietro H Guzzi
- Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, 88100, Italy
| | - Heng Huang
- Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD 20742, United States
| | - Meng Jiang
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
| | - Ziynet Nesibe Kesimoglu
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, United States
- National Center of Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States
| | - Mehmet Koyuturk
- Department of Computer and Data Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, United States
| | - Jian Ma
- Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States
| | - Alexander R Pico
- Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology, Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, CA 94158, United States
| | - Nataša Pržulj
- Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, England
- ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Barcelona, 08010, Spain
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, 08034, Spain
| | - Teresa M Przytycka
- National Center of Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States
| | - Benjamin J Raphael
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
| | - Anna Ritz
- Department of Biology, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, United States
| | - Roded Sharan
- School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel
| | - Yang Shen
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
| | - Mona Singh
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
| | - Donna K Slonim
- Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, United States
| | - Hanghang Tong
- Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, United States
| | - Xinan Holly Yang
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
| | - Byung-Jun Yoon
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
- Computational Science Initiative, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, United States
| | - Haiyuan Yu
- Department of Computational Biology, Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, United States
| | - Tijana Milenković
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
- Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
- Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, United States
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2
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Tian Y, Wu L, Huang CC, Wang L. Identify Regulatory eQTLs by Multiome Sequencing in Prostate Single Cells. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.06.19.599704. [PMID: 38948854 PMCID: PMC11213234 DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.19.599704] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/02/2024]
Abstract
While genome-wide association studies and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis have made significant progress in identifying noncoding variants associated with prostate cancer risk and bulk tissue transcriptome changes, the regulatory effect of these genetic elements on gene expression remains largely unknown. Recent developments in single-cell sequencing have made it possible to perform ATAC-seq and RNA-seq profiling simultaneously to capture functional associations between chromatin accessibility and gene expression. In this study, we tested our hypothesis that this multiome single-cell approach allows for mapping regulatory elements and their target genes at prostate cancer risk loci. We applied a 10X Multiome ATAC + Gene Expression platform to encapsulate Tn5 transposase-tagged nuclei from multiple prostate cell lines for a total of 65,501 high quality single cells from RWPE1, RWPE2, PrEC, BPH1, DU145, PC3, 22Rv1 and LNCaP cell lines. To address data sparsity commonly seen in the single-cell sequencing, we performed targeted sequencing to enrich sequencing data at prostate cancer risk loci involving 2,730 candidate germline variants and 273 associated genes. Although not increasing the number of captured cells, the targeted multiome data did improve eQTL gene expression abundance by about 20% and chromatin accessibility abundance by about 5%. Based on this multiomic profiling, we further associated RNA expression alterations with chromatin accessibility of germline variants at single cell levels. Cross validation analysis showed high overlaps between the multiome associations and the bulk eQTL findings from GTEx prostate cohort. We found that about 20% of GTEx eQTLs were covered within the significant multiome associations (p-value ≤ 0.05, gene abundance percentage ≥ 5%), and roughly 10% of the multiome associations could be identified by significant GTEx eQTLs. We also analyzed accessible regions with available heterozygous SNP reads and observed more frequent association in genomic regions with allelically accessible variants (p = 0.0055). Among these findings were previously reported regulatory variants including rs60464856-RUVBL1 (multiome p-value = 0.0099 in BPH1) and rs7247241-SPINT2 (multiome p-value = 0.0002- 0.0004 in 22Rv1). We also functionally validated a new regulatory SNP and its target gene rs2474694-VPS53 (multiome p-value = 0.00956 in BPH1 and 0.00625 in DU145) by reporter assay and SILAC proteomics sequencing. Taken together, our data demonstrated the feasibility of the multiome single-cell approach for identifying regulatory SNPs and their regulated genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yijun Tian
- Department of Tumor Biology, Moffitt Cancer Center, 12902 Magnolia Drive, Tampa, FL 33612, United States
| | - Lang Wu
- Population Sciences in the Pacific Program, University of Hawai i Cancer Center, University of Hawai i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA
| | - Chang-Ching Huang
- Zilber College of Public Health, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
| | - Liang Wang
- Department of Tumor Biology, Moffitt Cancer Center, 12902 Magnolia Drive, Tampa, FL 33612, United States
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3
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De Marzio M, Glass K, Kuijjer ML. Single-sample network modeling on omics data. BMC Biol 2023; 21:296. [PMID: 38155351 PMCID: PMC10755944 DOI: 10.1186/s12915-023-01783-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/30/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Margherita De Marzio
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medicine School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kimberly Glass
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medicine School, Boston, MA, USA.
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Marieke L Kuijjer
- Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), Nordic EMBL Partnership, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
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4
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Saha E, Fanfani V, Mandros P, Ben-Guebila M, Fischer J, Hoff-Shutta K, Glass K, DeMeo DL, Lopes-Ramos C, Quackenbush J. Bayesian Optimized sample-specific Networks Obtained By Omics data (BONOBO). BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.11.16.567119. [PMID: 38014256 PMCID: PMC10680741 DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.16.567119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2023]
Abstract
Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are effective tools for inferring complex interactions between molecules that regulate biological processes and hence can provide insights into drivers of biological systems. Inferring co-expression networks is a critical element of GRN inference as the correlation between expression patterns may indicate that genes are coregulated by common factors. However, methods that estimate co-expression networks generally derive an aggregate network representing the mean regulatory properties of the population and so fail to fully capture population heterogeneity. To address these concerns, we introduce BONOBO (Bayesian Optimized Networks Obtained By assimilating Omics data), a scalable Bayesian model for deriving individual sample-specific co-expression networks by recognizing variations in molecular interactions across individuals. For every sample, BONOBO assumes a Gaussian distribution on the log-transformed centered gene expression and a conjugate prior distribution on the sample-specific co-expression matrix constructed from all other samples in the data. Combining the sample-specific gene expression with the prior distribution, BONOBO yields a closed-form solution for the posterior distribution of the sample-specific co-expression matrices, thus making the method extremely scalable. We demonstrate the utility of BONOBO in several contexts, including analyzing gene regulation in yeast transcription factor knockout studies, prognostic significance of miRNA-mRNA interaction in human breast cancer subtypes, and sex differences in gene regulation within human thyroid tissue. We find that BONOBO outperforms other sample-specific co-expression network inference methods and provides insight into individual differences in the drivers of biological processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enakshi Saha
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
| | - Viola Fanfani
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
| | - Panagiotis Mandros
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
| | - Marouen Ben-Guebila
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
| | - Jonas Fischer
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
| | - Katherine Hoff-Shutta
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kimberly Glass
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Dawn Lisa DeMeo
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Camila Lopes-Ramos
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - John Quackenbush
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
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5
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Ben Guebila M, Wang T, Lopes-Ramos CM, Fanfani V, Weighill D, Burkholz R, Schlauch D, Paulson JN, Altenbuchinger M, Shutta KH, Sonawane AR, Lim J, Calderer G, van IJzendoorn DGP, Morgan D, Marin A, Chen CY, Song Q, Saha E, DeMeo DL, Padi M, Platig J, Kuijjer ML, Glass K, Quackenbush J. The Network Zoo: a multilingual package for the inference and analysis of gene regulatory networks. Genome Biol 2023; 24:45. [PMID: 36894939 PMCID: PMC9999668 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-02877-1] [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: 06/16/2022] [Accepted: 02/15/2023] [Indexed: 03/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Inference and analysis of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) require software that integrates multi-omic data from various sources. The Network Zoo (netZoo; netzoo.github.io) is a collection of open-source methods to infer GRNs, conduct differential network analyses, estimate community structure, and explore the transitions between biological states. The netZoo builds on our ongoing development of network methods, harmonizing the implementations in various computing languages and between methods to allow better integration of these tools into analytical pipelines. We demonstrate the utility using multi-omic data from the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia. We will continue to expand the netZoo to incorporate additional methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marouen Ben Guebila
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Tian Wang
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Biology Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
| | - Camila M Lopes-Ramos
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Viola Fanfani
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Des Weighill
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Rebekka Burkholz
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Saarbrücken, Germany
| | - Daniel Schlauch
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Genospace, LLC, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Joseph N Paulson
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA
| | - Michael Altenbuchinger
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Department of Medical Bioinformatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Katherine H Shutta
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Abhijeet R Sonawane
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - James Lim
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
- Present Address: Monoceros Biosystems, LLC, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Genis Calderer
- Center for Molecular Medicine Norway, Nordic EMBL Partnership, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - David G P van IJzendoorn
- Department of Pathology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Present Address: Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, USA
| | - Daniel Morgan
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: School of Biomedical Sciences, Hong Kong University, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
| | | | - Cho-Yi Chen
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Institute of Biomedical Informatics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, 112, Taiwan
| | - Qi Song
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Present Address: Computational Biology Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Enakshi Saha
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Dawn L DeMeo
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Megha Padi
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - John Platig
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Marieke L Kuijjer
- Center for Molecular Medicine Norway, Nordic EMBL Partnership, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Department of Pathology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Leiden Center for Computational Oncology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Kimberly Glass
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - John Quackenbush
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
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6
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Galindez G, Sadegh S, Baumbach J, Kacprowski T, List M. Network-based approaches for modeling disease regulation and progression. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2022; 21:780-795. [PMID: 36698974 PMCID: PMC9841310 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.12.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2022] [Revised: 12/14/2022] [Accepted: 12/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Molecular interaction networks lay the foundation for studying how biological functions are controlled by the complex interplay of genes and proteins. Investigating perturbed processes using biological networks has been instrumental in uncovering mechanisms that underlie complex disease phenotypes. Rapid advances in omics technologies have prompted the generation of high-throughput datasets, enabling large-scale, network-based analyses. Consequently, various modeling techniques, including network enrichment, differential network extraction, and network inference, have proven to be useful for gaining new mechanistic insights. We provide an overview of recent network-based methods and their core ideas to facilitate the discovery of disease modules or candidate mechanisms. Knowledge generated from these computational efforts will benefit biomedical research, especially drug development and precision medicine. We further discuss current challenges and provide perspectives in the field, highlighting the need for more integrative and dynamic network approaches to model disease development and progression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gihanna Galindez
- Division Data Science in Biomedicine, Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics of Technische Universität Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Braunschweig, Germany
- Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology (BRICS), TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
| | - Sepideh Sadegh
- Chair of Experimental Bioinformatics, TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
- Institute for Computational Systems Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Jan Baumbach
- Institute for Computational Systems Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
| | - Tim Kacprowski
- Division Data Science in Biomedicine, Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics of Technische Universität Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Braunschweig, Germany
- Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology (BRICS), TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
| | - Markus List
- Chair of Experimental Bioinformatics, TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
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7
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Perkel JM. Smart software untangles gene regulation in cells. Nature 2022; 609:428-431. [PMID: 36064802 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-022-02826-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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8
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Fernandez G, Yubero D, Palau F, Armstrong J. Molecular Modelling Hurdle in the Next-Generation Sequencing Era. Int J Mol Sci 2022; 23:7176. [PMID: 35806177 PMCID: PMC9266691 DOI: 10.3390/ijms23137176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2022] [Revised: 06/24/2022] [Accepted: 06/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/10/2022] Open
Abstract
There are challenges in the genetic diagnosis of rare diseases, and pursuing an optimal strategy to identify the cause of the disease is one of the main objectives of any clinical genomics unit. A range of techniques are currently used to characterize the genomic variability within the human genome to detect causative variants of specific disorders. With the introduction of next-generation sequencing (NGS) in the clinical setting, geneticists can study single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) throughout the entire exome/genome. In turn, the number of variants to be evaluated per patient has increased significantly, and more information has to be processed and analyzed to determine a proper diagnosis. Roughly 50% of patients with a Mendelian genetic disorder are diagnosed using NGS, but a fair number of patients still suffer a diagnostic odyssey. Due to the inherent diversity of the human population, as more exomes or genomes are sequenced, variants of uncertain significance (VUSs) will increase exponentially. Thus, assigning relevance to a VUS (non-synonymous as well as synonymous) in an undiagnosed patient becomes crucial to assess the proper diagnosis. Multiple algorithms have been used to predict how a specific mutation might affect the protein's function, but they are far from accurate enough to be conclusive. In this work, we highlight the difficulties of genomic variability determined by NGS that have arisen in diagnosing rare genetic diseases, and how molecular modelling has to be a key component to elucidate the relevance of a specific mutation in the protein's loss of function or malfunction. We suggest that the creation of a multi-omics data model should improve the classification of pathogenicity for a significant amount of the detected genomic variability. Moreover, we argue how it should be incorporated systematically in the process of variant evaluation to be useful in the clinical setting and the diagnostic pipeline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guerau Fernandez
- Department of Genetic and Molecular Medicine—IPER, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, 08950 Barcelona, Spain; (G.F.); (F.P.); (J.A.)
- Center for Biomedical Research Network on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), ISCIII, 08950 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Dèlia Yubero
- Department of Genetic and Molecular Medicine—IPER, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, 08950 Barcelona, Spain; (G.F.); (F.P.); (J.A.)
- Center for Biomedical Research Network on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), ISCIII, 08950 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Francesc Palau
- Department of Genetic and Molecular Medicine—IPER, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, 08950 Barcelona, Spain; (G.F.); (F.P.); (J.A.)
- Center for Biomedical Research Network on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), ISCIII, 08950 Barcelona, Spain
- Division of Pediatrics, University of Barcelona School of Medicine and Health Sciences, 08007 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Judith Armstrong
- Department of Genetic and Molecular Medicine—IPER, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, 08950 Barcelona, Spain; (G.F.); (F.P.); (J.A.)
- Center for Biomedical Research Network on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), ISCIII, 08950 Barcelona, Spain
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9
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Sonawane AR, Aikawa E, Aikawa M. Connections for Matters of the Heart: Network Medicine in Cardiovascular Diseases. Front Cardiovasc Med 2022; 9:873582. [PMID: 35665246 PMCID: PMC9160390 DOI: 10.3389/fcvm.2022.873582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are diverse disorders affecting the heart and vasculature in millions of people worldwide. Like other fields, CVD research has benefitted from the deluge of multiomics biomedical data. Current CVD research focuses on disease etiologies and mechanisms, identifying disease biomarkers, developing appropriate therapies and drugs, and stratifying patients into correct disease endotypes. Systems biology offers an alternative to traditional reductionist approaches and provides impetus for a comprehensive outlook toward diseases. As a focus area, network medicine specifically aids the translational aspect of in silico research. This review discusses the approach of network medicine and its application to CVD research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abhijeet Rajendra Sonawane
- Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
- Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Elena Aikawa
- Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
- Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Masanori Aikawa
- Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
- Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
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