Accurate gene model annotation of reference genomes is critical for making them useful. The modENCODE project has improved the D. melanogaster genome annotation by using deep and diverse high-throughput data. Since transcriptional activity that has been evolutionarily conserved is likely to have an advantageous function, we have performed large-scale interspecific comparisons to increase confidence in predicted annotations. To support comparative genomics, we filled in divergence gaps in the Drosophila phylogeny by generating draft genomes for eight new species. For comparative transcriptome analysis, we generated mRNA expression profiles on 81 samples from multiple tissues and developmental stages of 15 Drosophila species, and we performed cap analysis of gene expression in D. melanogaster and D. pseudoobscura. We also describe conservation of four distinct core promoter structures composed of combinations of elements at three positions. Overall, each type of genomic feature shows a characteristic divergence rate relative to neutral models, highlighting the value of multispecies alignment in annotating a target genome that should prove useful in the annotation of other high priority genomes, especially human and other mammalian genomes that are rich in noncoding sequences. We report that the vast majority of elements in the annotation are evolutionarily conserved, indicating that the annotation will be an important springboard for functional genetic testing by the Drosophila community.

In complex diseases, various combinations of genomic perturbations often lead to the same phenotype. On a molecular level, combinations of genomic perturbations are assumed to dys-regulate the same cellular pathways. Such a pathway-centric perspective is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of complex diseases and the identification of potential drug targets. In order to provide an integrated perspective on complex disease mechanisms, we developed a novel computational method to simultaneously identify causal genes and dys-regulated pathways. First, we identified a representative set of genes that are differentially expressed in cancer compared to non-tumor control cases. Assuming that disease-associated gene expression changes are caused by genomic alterations, we determined potential paths from such genomic causes to target genes through a network of molecular interactions. Applying our method to sets of genomic alterations and gene expression profiles of 158 Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients we uncovered candidate causal genes and causal paths that are potentially responsible for the altered expression of disease genes. We discovered a set of putative causal genes that potentially play a role in the disease. Combining an expression Quantitative Trait Loci (eQTL) analysis with pathway information, our approach allowed us not only to identify potential causal genes but also to find intermediate nodes and pathways mediating the information flow between causal and target genes. Our results indicate that different genomic perturbations indeed dys-regulate the same functional pathways, supporting a pathway-centric perspective of cancer. While copy number alterations and gene expression data of glioblastoma patients provided opportunities to test our approach, our method can be applied to any disease system where genetic variations play a fundamental causal role.

We introduce a classification of mutual exclusivity into three basic classes: within tissue type exclusivity, across tissue type exclusivity and between tissue type exclusivity. We then combined across-cancer mutual exclusivity with interactions data to uncover pan-cancer dysregulated pathways. Our new method, Mutual Exclusivity Module Cover (MEMCover) not only identified previously known Pan-Cancer dysregulated subnetworks but also novel subnetworks whose across cancer role has not been appreciated well before. In addition, we demonstrate the existence of mutual exclusivity hubs, putatively corresponding to cancer drivers with strong growth advantages. Finally, we show that while mutually exclusive pairs within or across cancer types are predominantly functionally interacting, the pairs in between cancer mutual exclusivity class are more often disconnected in functional networks.

Uncovering and interpreting phenotype/genotype relationships are among the most challenging open questions in disease studies. Set cover approaches are explicitly designed to provide a representative set for diverse disease cases and thus are valuable in studies of heterogeneous datasets. At the same time pathway-centric methods have emerged as key approaches that significantly empower studies of genotype-phenotype relationships. Combining the utility of set cover techniques with the power of network-centric approaches, we designed a novel approach that extends the concept of set cover to network modules cover. We developed two alternative methods to solve the module cover problem: (i) an integrated method that simultaneously determines network modules and optimizes the coverage of disease cases. (ii) a two-step method where we first determined a candidate set of network modules and subsequently selected modules that provided the best coverage of the disease cases. The integrated method showed superior performance in the context of our application. We demonstrated the utility of the module cover approach for the identification of groups ofrelated genes whose activity is perturbed in a coherent way by specific genomic alterations, allowing the interpretation of the heterogeneity of cancer cases.

No abstract

Large scale molecular interaction networks are being increasingly used to provide a system level view of cellular processes. Modeling communications between nodes in such huge networks as information flows is useful for dissecting dynamical dependences between individual network components. In the information flow model, individual nodes are assumed to communicate with each other by propagating the signals through intermediate nodes in the network. In this paper, we first provide an overview of the state of the art of research in the network analysis based on information flow models. In the second part, we describe our computational method underlying our recent work on discovering dys-regulated pathways in glioma. Motivated by applications to inferring information flow from genotype to phenotype in a very large human interaction network, we generalized previous approaches to compute information flows for a large number of instances and also provided a formal proof for the method.

No abstract

No abstract