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Nussinov R, Yavuz BR, Demirel HC, Arici MK, Jang H, Tuncbag N. Review: Cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders: multi-scale reasoning and computational guide. Front Cell Dev Biol 2024; 12:1376639. [PMID: 39015651 PMCID: PMC11249571 DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1376639] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2024] [Accepted: 06/10/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024] Open
Abstract
The connection and causality between cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders have been puzzling. How can the same cellular pathways, proteins, and mutations lead to pathologies with vastly different clinical presentations? And why do individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia, face higher chances of cancer emerging throughout their lifetime? Our broad review emphasizes the multi-scale aspect of this type of reasoning. As these examples demonstrate, rather than focusing on a specific organ system or disease, we aim at the new understanding that can be gained. Within this framework, our review calls attention to computational strategies which can be powerful in discovering connections, causalities, predicting clinical outcomes, and are vital for drug discovery. Thus, rather than centering on the clinical features, we draw on the rapidly increasing data on the molecular level, including mutations, isoforms, three-dimensional structures, and expression levels of the respective disease-associated genes. Their integrated analysis, together with chromatin states, can delineate how, despite being connected, neurodevelopmental disorders and cancer differ, and how the same mutations can lead to different clinical symptoms. Here, we seek to uncover the emerging connection between cancer, including pediatric tumors, and neurodevelopmental disorders, and the tantalizing questions that this connection raises.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruth Nussinov
- Computational Structural Biology Section, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in the Cancer Innovation Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, United States
- Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
| | - Bengi Ruken Yavuz
- Cancer Innovation Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, United States
| | | | - M. Kaan Arici
- Graduate School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Türkiye
| | - Hyunbum Jang
- Computational Structural Biology Section, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in the Cancer Innovation Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, United States
| | - Nurcan Tuncbag
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Koc University, Istanbul, Türkiye
- School of Medicine, Koc University, Istanbul, Türkiye
- Koc University Research Center for Translational Medicine (KUTTAM), Istanbul, Türkiye
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Gan X, Shu Z, Wang X, Yan D, Li J, Ofaim S, Albert R, Li X, Liu B, Zhou X, Barabási AL. Network medicine framework reveals generic herb-symptom effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2023; 9:eadh0215. [PMID: 37889962 PMCID: PMC10610911 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh0215] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2023] [Accepted: 09/26/2023] [Indexed: 10/29/2023]
Abstract
Understanding natural and traditional medicine can lead to world-changing drug discoveries. Despite the therapeutic effectiveness of individual herbs, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) lacks a scientific foundation and is often considered a myth. In this study, we establish a network medicine framework and reveal the general TCM treatment principle as the topological relationship between disease symptoms and TCM herb targets on the human protein interactome. We find that proteins associated with a symptom form a network module, and the network proximity of an herb's targets to a symptom module is predictive of the herb's effectiveness in treating the symptom. These findings are validated using patient data from a hospital. We highlight the translational value of our framework by predicting herb-symptom treatments with therapeutic potential. Our network medicine framework reveals the scientific foundation of TCM and establishes a paradigm for understanding the molecular basis of natural medicine and predicting disease treatments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiao Gan
- Institute for AI in Medicine, School of Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
- Network Science Institute, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
| | - Zixin Shu
- Institute of Medical Intelligence, School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100063, China
| | - Xinyan Wang
- Institute of Medical Intelligence, School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100063, China
| | - Dengying Yan
- Institute of Medical Intelligence, School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100063, China
| | - Jun Li
- Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China
| | - Shany Ofaim
- Network Science Institute, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Réka Albert
- Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
| | - Xiaodong Li
- Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China
- Hubei Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hubei Academy of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430061, China
| | - Baoyan Liu
- China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China
| | - Xuezhong Zhou
- Institute of Medical Intelligence, School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100063, China
| | - Albert-László Barabási
- Network Science Institute, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Network and Data Science, Central European University, Budapest 1051, Hungary
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Ghadie MA, Xia Y. Are transient protein-protein interactions more dispensable? PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010013. [PMID: 35404956 PMCID: PMC9000134 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2021] [Accepted: 03/11/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are key drivers of cell function and evolution. While it is widely assumed that most permanent PPIs are important for cellular function, it remains unclear whether transient PPIs are equally important. Here, we estimate and compare dispensable content among transient PPIs and permanent PPIs in human. Starting with a human reference interactome mapped by experiments, we construct a human structural interactome by building three-dimensional structural models for PPIs, and then distinguish transient PPIs from permanent PPIs using several structural and biophysical properties. We map common mutations from healthy individuals and disease-causing mutations onto the structural interactome, and perform structure-based calculations of the probabilities for common mutations (assumed to be neutral) and disease mutations (assumed to be mildly deleterious) to disrupt transient PPIs and permanent PPIs. Using Bayes' theorem we estimate that a similarly small fraction (<~20%) of both transient and permanent PPIs are completely dispensable, i.e., effectively neutral upon disruption. Hence, transient and permanent interactions are subject to similarly strong selective constraints in the human interactome.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Yu Xia
- Department of Bioengineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
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Ghadie M, Xia Y. Mutation Edgotype Drives Fitness Effect in Human. FRONTIERS IN BIOINFORMATICS 2021; 1:690769. [PMID: 36303776 PMCID: PMC9581054 DOI: 10.3389/fbinf.2021.690769] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2021] [Accepted: 08/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Missense mutations are known to perturb protein-protein interaction networks (known as interactome networks) in different ways. However, it remains unknown how different interactome perturbation patterns (“edgotypes”) impact organismal fitness. Here, we estimate the fitness effect of missense mutations with different interactome perturbation patterns in human, by calculating the fractions of neutral and deleterious mutations that do not disrupt PPIs (“quasi-wild-type”), or disrupt PPIs either by disrupting the binding interface (“edgetic”) or by disrupting overall protein stability (“quasi-null”). We first map pathogenic mutations and common non-pathogenic mutations onto homology-based three-dimensional structural models of proteins and protein-protein interactions in human. Next, we perform structure-based calculations to classify each mutation as either quasi-wild-type, edgetic, or quasi-null. Using our predicted as well as experimentally determined interactome perturbation patterns, we estimate that >∼40% of quasi-wild-type mutations are effectively neutral and the remaining are mostly mildly deleterious, that >∼75% of edgetic mutations are only mildly deleterious, and that up to ∼75% of quasi-null mutations may be strongly detrimental. These estimates are the first such estimates of fitness effect for different network perturbation patterns in any interactome. Our results suggest that while mutations that do not disrupt the interactome tend to be effectively neutral, the majority of human PPIs are under strong purifying selection and the stability of most human proteins is essential to human life.
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Srinivasan S, Leshchyk A, Johnson NT, Korkin D. A hybrid deep clustering approach for robust cell type profiling using single-cell RNA-seq data. RNA (NEW YORK, N.Y.) 2020; 26:1303-1319. [PMID: 32532794 PMCID: PMC7491323 DOI: 10.1261/rna.074427.119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2020] [Accepted: 05/22/2020] [Indexed: 05/07/2023]
Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a recent technology that enables fine-grained discovery of cellular subtypes and specific cell states. Analysis of scRNA-seq data routinely involves machine learning methods, such as feature learning, clustering, and classification, to assist in uncovering novel information from scRNA-seq data. However, current methods are not well suited to deal with the substantial amount of noise that is created by the experiments or the variation that occurs due to differences in the cells of the same type. To address this, we developed a new hybrid approach, deep unsupervised single-cell clustering (DUSC), which integrates feature generation based on a deep learning architecture by using a new technique to estimate the number of latent features, with a model-based clustering algorithm, to find a compact and informative representation of the single-cell transcriptomic data generating robust clusters. We also include a technique to estimate an efficient number of latent features in the deep learning model. Our method outperforms both classical and state-of-the-art feature learning and clustering methods, approaching the accuracy of supervised learning. We applied DUSC to a single-cell transcriptomics data set obtained from a triple-negative breast cancer tumor to identify potential cancer subclones accentuated by copy-number variation and investigate the role of clonal heterogeneity. Our method is freely available to the community and will hopefully facilitate our understanding of the cellular atlas of living organisms as well as provide the means to improve patient diagnostics and treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suhas Srinivasan
- Data Science Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609, USA
| | - Anastasia Leshchyk
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609, USA
| | - Nathan T Johnson
- Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
- Breast Tumor Immunology Laboratory, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
| | - Dmitry Korkin
- Data Science Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609, USA
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609, USA
- Department of Computer Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609, USA
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