Uncovering the structure of the transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) that modulates gene expression in prokaryotes remains an important challenge. Transcriptomics data is plentiful, necessitating the development of scalable methods for converting this data into useful knowledge about the TRN. Previously, we published the PRECISE dataset for Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655, containing 278 RNA-seq datasets created using a standardized protocol. Here, we present PRECISE 2.0, which is nearly three times the size of the original PRECISE dataset and also created using a standardized protocol. We analyze PRECISE 2.0 at multiple scales, demonstrating multiple analytical strategies for extracting knowledge from this dataset. Specifically, we: (1) highlight patterns in gene expression across the dataset; (2) utilize independent component analysis to extract 218 independently modulated groups of genes (iModulons) that describe the TRN at the systems level; (3) demonstrate the utility of iModulons over traditional differential expression analysis; and (4) uncover 6 new potential regulons. Thus, PRECISE 2.0 is a large-scale, high-quality transcriptomics dataset which may be analyzed at multiple scales to yield important biological insights.

Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is an unsupervised machine learning algorithm that separates a set of mixed signals into a set of statistically independent source signals. Applied to high-quality gene expression datasets, ICA effectively reveals the source signals of the transcriptome as groups of co-regulated genes and their corresponding activities across diverse growth conditions. Two major variables that affect the output of ICA are the diversity and scope of the underlying data, and the user-defined number of independent components, or dimensionality, to compute. Availability of high-quality transcriptomic datasets has grown exponentially as high-throughput technologies have advanced; however, optimal dimensionality selection remains an open question. Here, we introduce a new method, called OptICA, for effectively finding the optimal dimensionality that consistently maximizes the number of biologically relevant components revealed while minimizing the potential for over-decomposition. We show that OptICA outperforms two previously proposed methods for selecting the number of independent components across four transcriptomic databases of varying sizes. OptICA avoids both over-decomposition and under-decomposition of transcriptomic datasets resulting in the best representation of the organism's underlying transcriptional regulatory network.