Identification of differentially expressed subpathways via a bilevel consensus scoring of network topology and gene expression

Identifying differentially expressed subpathways connected to the emergence of a disease that can be considered as candidates for pharmacological intervention, with minimal off-target effects, is a daunting task. In this direction, we present a bilevel subpathway analysis method to identify differentially expressed subpathways that are connected with an experimental condition, while taking into account potential crosstalks between subpathways which arise due to their connectivity in a combined multi-pathway network. The efficacy of the method is demonstrated on a hematopoietic stem cell aging dataset, with findings corroborated using recent literature.

DEsubs: an R package for flexible identification of differentially expressed subpathways using RNA-seq experiments

DEsubs is a network-based systems biology R package that extracts disease-perturbed subpathways within a pathway network as recorded by RNA-seq experiments. It contains an extensive and customized framework with a broad range of operation modes at all stages of the subpathway analysis, enabling so a case-specific approach. The operation modes include pathway network construction and processing, subpathway extraction, visualization and enrichment analysis with regard to various biological and pharmacological features. Its capabilities render DEsubs a tool-guide for both the modeler and experimentalist for the identification of more robust systems-level drug targets and biomarkers for complex diseases.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION

DEsubs is implemented as an R package following Bioconductor guidelines: http://bioconductor.org/packages/DEsubs/ CONTACT: tassos.bezerianos@nus.edu.sgSupplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Identifying disease network perturbations through regression on gene expression and pathway topology analysis

In Systems Biology, network-based approaches have been extensively used to effectively study complex diseases. An important challenge is the detection of network perturbations which disrupt regular biological functions as a result of a disease. In this regard, we introduce a network based pathway analysis method which isolates casual interactions with significant regulatory roles within diseased-perturbed pathways. Specifically, we use gene expression data with Random Forest regression models to assess the interactivity strengths of genes within disease-perturbed networks, using KEGG pathway maps as a source of prior-knowledge pertaining to pathway topology. We deliver as output a network with imprinted perturbations corresponding to the biological phenomena arising in a disease-oriented experiment. The efficacy of our approach is demonstrated on a serous papillary ovarian cancer experiment and results highlight the functional roles of high impact interactions and key gene regulators which cause strong perturbations on pathway networks, in accordance with experimentally validated knowledge from recent literature.

CHRONOS: a time-varying method for microRNA-mediated subpathway enrichment analysis

MOTIVATION

In the era of network medicine and the rapid growth of paired time series mRNA/microRNA expression experiments, there is an urgent need for pathway enrichment analysis methods able to capture the time- and condition-specific 'active parts' of the biological circuitry as well as the microRNA impact. Current methods ignore the multiple dynamical 'themes'-in the form of enriched biologically relevant microRNA-mediated subpathways-that determine the functionality of signaling networks across time.

RESULTS

To address these challenges, we developed time-vaRying enriCHment integrOmics Subpathway aNalysis tOol (CHRONOS) by integrating time series mRNA/microRNA expression data with KEGG pathway maps and microRNA-target interactions. Specifically, microRNA-mediated subpathway topologies are extracted and evaluated based on the temporal transition and the fold change activity of the linked genes/microRNAs. Further, we provide measures that capture the structural and functional features of subpathways in relation to the complete organism pathway atlas. Our application to synthetic and real data shows that CHRONOS outperforms current subpathway-based methods into unraveling the inherent dynamic properties of pathways.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION

CHRONOS is freely available at http://biosignal.med.upatras.gr/chronos/

CONTACT

tassos.bezerianos@nus.edu.sg

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.