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Performing proper image contrast adjustment without information loss is an art. The default settings are often inappropriate for the image in question rendering a contrast adjustment depending on trial and error. We propose a simple method, rank-based transformation (RBT), for image contrast adjustment that requires no prior knowledge. This makes RBT an ideal first tool to apply for underexposed images. The RBT algorithm normalizes and equalizes all the intensity differences of the image over the full intensity range of the image data type, and thus assigning equal weight to all gradients. Even the state-of-the-art AI tool Cellpose visually benefits from RBT preprocessing. Our comparison of histogram normalization methods demonstrates the ability of RBT to bring out image features.

Performing proper image contrast adjustment with- out information loss is an art. The default settings are often inappropriate for the image in question rendering a contrast adjustment depending on trial and error. We propose a simple method, rank-based transformation (RBT), for image contrast adjustment that requires no prior knowledge. This makes RBT an ideal first tool to apply for underexposed images. The RBT algorithm normalizes and equalizes all the intensity differences of the image over the full intensity range of the image data type, and thus assigning equal weight to all gradients. Even the state-of-the-art AI tool Cellpose visually benefits from RBT pre- processing. Our comparison of histogram normalization methods demonstrates the ability of RBT to bring out image features.

The paper investigates the effect of the property taxation reform introduced in Sweden from 2006 to 2008 on the market price of the affected properties (one-family houses). We make an extensive empirical analysis of the tax capitalization effect, given that prior research has detected only partial capitalization and that there has been an extensive debate regarding the extent to which the tax gets capitalized into property market prices. In particular, the tax capitalization effect for single-family house prices was investigated by looking into various sub-groups of properties and doing extensive statistical inquiries into the property transaction data. Despite a relatively broad time period in which the reform took place, a jump in the market values of the affected properties is detectable in the fourth quarter of 2006. Our findings emphasise the importance of creating a representative data sample in analyzing and assessing the outcomes and impacts of policy interventions such as a taxation reform.

Motivation: The synthesis of proteins with novel desired properties is challenging but sought after by the industry and academia. The dominating approach is based on trial-and-error inducing point mutations, assisted by structural information or predictive models built with paired data that are difficult to collect. This study proposes a sequence-based unpaired-sample of novel protein inventor (SUNI) to build ThermalProGAN for generating thermally stable proteins based on sequence information. Results: The ThermalProGAN can strongly mutate the input sequence with a median number of 32 residues. A known normal protein, 1RG0, was used to generate a thermally stable form by mutating 51 residues. After superimposing the two structures, high similarity is shown, indicating that the basic function would be conserved. Eighty four molecular dynamics simulation results of 1RG0 and the COVID-19 vaccine candidates with a total simulation time of 840[Formula: see text]ns indicate that the thermal stability increased. Conclusion: This proof of concept demonstrated that transfer of a desired protein property from one set of proteins is feasible. Availability and implementation: The source code of ThermalProGAN can be freely accessed at https://github.com/markliou/ThermalProGAN/ with an MIT license. The website is https://thermalprogan.markliou.tw:433 . Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available on Github.

It has been a great challenge to optimize the growth conditions toward structure-controlled growth of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Here, a high-throughput method combined with machine learning is reported that efficiently screens the growth conditions for the synthesis of high-quality SWCNTs. Patterned cobalt (Co) nanoparticles were deposited on a numerically marked silicon wafer as catalysts, and parameters of temperature, reduction time and carbon precursor were optimized. The crystallinity of the SWCNTs was characterized by Raman spectroscopy where the featured G/D peak intensity (IG/ID) was extracted automatically and mapped to the growth parameters to build a database. 1,280 data were collected to train machine learning models. Random forest regression (RFR) showed high precision in predicting the growth conditions for high-quality SWCNTs, as validated by further chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth. This method shows great potential in structure-controlled growth of SWCNTs.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic on December 31st, 2019, with the World Health Organization being notified of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan (China), Taiwan has successfully ended two COVID-19 community outbreaks. For 19 days, the third community outbreak has now been successfully suppressed, putting Taiwan on path to end it too around Aug. 16th based on our forecast using an exponential model. Since May 28th the 7-day average of reported confirmed infected, which peaked at 593, has been falling to 204 on June 16th and the 7-day average of reported suspected and excluded cases increased to above 25 000. Resulting in a decrease in the ratio of the 7-day average of local & unknown confirmed to suspected cases–the identified control variable–to less than one third of its peak value. The later is a hallmark of working contact tracing, which together with testing and isolation of infected are the keys to ending the community outbreak.

Mechanical resonators have wide applications in sensing bio-chemical substances, and provide an accurate method to measure the intrinsic elastic properties of oscillating materials. A high resonance order with high response frequency and a small resonator mass are critical for enhancing the sensitivity and precision. Here, we report on the realization and direct observation of high-order and high-frequency silicon nanowire (Si NW) resonators. By using an oscillating electric-field for inducing a mechanical resonance of single-crystalline Si NWs inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM), we observed resonance up to the 5th order, for both normal and parametric modes at ∼100 MHz frequencies. The precision of the resonant frequency was enhanced, as the deviation reduced from 3.14% at the 1st order to 0.25% at the 5th order, correlating with the increase of energy dissipation. The elastic modulus of Si NWs was measured to be ∼169 GPa in the [110] direction, and size scaling effects were found to be absent down to the ∼20 nm level.

The interactions among the components of a living cell that constitute the gene regulatory network (GRN) can be inferred from perturbation-based gene expression data. Such networks are useful for providing mechanistic insights of a biological system. In order to explore the feasibility and quality of GRN inference at a large scale, we used the L1000 data where ~1000 genes have been perturbed and their expression levels have been quantified in 9 cancer cell lines. We found that these datasets have a very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) level causing them to be too uninformative to infer accurate GRNs. We developed a gene reduction pipeline in which we eliminate uninformative genes from the system using a selection criterion based on SNR, until reaching an informative subset. The results show that our pipeline can identify an informative subset in an overall uninformative dataset, allowing inference of accurate subset GRNs. The accurate GRNs were functionally characterized and potential novel cancer-related regulatory interactions were identified.

The gene regulatory network (GRN) of human cells encodes mechanisms to ensure proper functioning. However, if this GRN is dysregulated, the cell may enter into a disease state such as cancer. Understanding the GRN as a system can therefore help identify novel mechanisms underlying disease, which can lead to new therapies. Reliable inference of GRNs is however still a major challenge in systems biology.To deduce regulatory interactions relevant to cancer, we applied a recent computational inference framework to data from perturbation experiments in squamous carcinoma cell line A431. GRNs were inferred using several methods, and the false discovery rate was controlled by the NestBoot framework. We developed a novel approach to assess the predictiveness of inferred GRNs against validation data, despite the lack of a gold standard. The best GRN was significantly more predictive than the null model, both in crossvalidated benchmarks and for an independent dataset of the same genes under a different perturbation design. It agrees with many known links, in addition to predicting a large number of novel interactions from which a subset was experimentally validated. The inferred GRN captures regulatory interactions central to cancer-relevant processes and thus provides mechanistic insights that are useful for future cancer research.Data available at GSE125958Inferred GRNs and inference statistics available at https://dcolin.shinyapps.io/CancerGRN/ Software available at https://bitbucket.org/sonnhammergrni/genespider/src/BFECV/Author SummaryCancer is the second most common cause of death globally, and although cancer treatments have improved in recent years, we need to understand how regulatory mechanisms are altered in cancer to combat the disease efficiently. By applying gene perturbations and inference of gene regulatory networks to 40 genes known or suspected to have a role in cancer due to interactions with the oncogene MYC, we deduce their underlying regulatory interactions. Using a recent computational framework for inference together with a novel method for cross validation, we infer a reliable regulatory model of this system in a completely data driven manner, not reliant on literature or priors. The novel interactions add to the understanding of the progressive oncogenic regulatory process and may provide new targets for therapy.

The response to respiratory viruses varies substantially between individuals, and there are currently no known molecular predictors from the early stages of infection. Here we conduct a community-based analysis to determine whether pre- or early post-exposure molecular factors could predict physiologic responses to viral exposure. Using peripheral blood gene expression profiles collected from healthy subjects prior to exposure to one of four respiratory viruses (H1N1, H3N2, Rhinovirus, and RSV), as well as up to 24 h following exposure, we find that it is possible to construct models predictive of symptomatic response using profiles even prior to viral exposure. Analysis of predictive gene features reveal little overlap among models; however, in aggregate, these genes are enriched for common pathways. Heme metabolism, the most significantly enriched pathway, is associated with a higher risk of developing symptoms following viral exposure. This study demonstrates that pre-exposure molecular predictors can be identified and improves our understanding of the mechanisms of response to respiratory viruses., The response to respiratory virus exposure can currently not be predicted by pre- or early post-exposure molecular signatures. Here, the authors conduct a community-based analysis of blood gene expression from healthy individuals exposed to respiratory viruses and provide predictive models and biological insight into the physiological response.

Synthetic gene circuits can be used to modify and control existing biological processes and thus e.g. increase drug yields. Currently their use is hampered by the, largely, trial and error approach used to design them. Lack of reliable quantitative dynamical models of genetic circuits e.g. prevents the use of well established control design methods. We aim toward creation of a pipeline for automated closed-loop identification of dynamic models of synthetically engineered genetic circuits in microorganisms. As a step towards this aim, we here study modelling of the input-output behaviour of the yGIL337 strain of S. cerevisiae. In this strain expression of the fluorescent reporter can be turned on by growing the yeast in galactose and off by glucose. We perform parameter estimation on a system of three ordinary differential equations of Michaelis-Menten type based on in vivo data from a microfluidic experiment by Fiore et al. (2013) after redoing the data preprocessing. The parameter estimation is done using AMIGO2–a state of the art Matlab toolbox for iterative identification of dynamical models. We show that the goodness-of-fit of our model is comparable to the five models proposed by Fiore et al. and we hypothesise that the system is an adaptive feedback system.

A key question in network inference, that has not been properly answered, is what accuracy can be expected for a given biological dataset and inference method. We present GeneSPIDER - a Matlab package for tuning, running, and evaluating inference algorithms that allows independent control of network and data properties to enable data-driven benchmarking. GeneSPIDER is uniquely suited to address this question by first extracting salient properties from the experimental data and then generating simulated networks and data that closely match these properties. It enables data-driven algorithm selection, estimation of inference accuracy from biological data, and a more multifaceted benchmarking. Included are generic pipelines for the design of perturbation experiments, bootstrapping, analysis of linear dependence, sample selection, scaling of SNR, and performance evaluation. With GeneSPIDER we aim to move the goal of network inference benchmarks from simple performance measurement to a deeper understanding of how the accuracy of an algorithm is determined by different combinations of network and data properties.

Motivation Inference of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) from perturbation data can give detailed mechanistic insights of a biological system. Many inference methods exist, but the resulting GRN is generally sensitive to the choice of method-specific parameters. Even though the inferred GRN is optimal given the parameters, many links may be wrong or missing if the data is not informative. To make GRN inference reliable, a method is needed to estimate the support of each predicted link as the method parameters are varied. Results To achieve this we have developed a method called nested bootstrapping, which applies a bootstrapping protocol to GRN inference, and by repeated bootstrap runs assesses the stability of the estimated support values. To translate bootstrap support values to false discovery rates we run the same pipeline with shuffled data as input. This provides a general method to control the false discovery rate of GRN inference that can be applied to any setting of inference parameters, noise level, or data properties. We evaluated nested bootstrapping on a simulated dataset spanning a range of such properties, using the LASSO, Least Squares, RNI, GENIE3 and CLR inference methods. An improved inference accuracy was observed in almost all situations. Nested bootstrapping was incorporated into the GeneSPIDER package, which was also used for generating the simulated networks and data, as well as running and analyzing the inferences. Availability and implementation https://bitbucket.org/sonnhammergrni/genespider/src/NB/%2B Methods/NestBoot.m

Mechanical resonators have wide applications in sensing bio-chemical substances, and provide an accurate method to measure the intrinsic elastic properties of oscillating materials. A high resonance order with high response frequency and a small resonator mass are critical for enhancing the sensitivity and precision. Here, we report on the realization and direct observation of high-order and high-frequency silicon nanowire (Si NW) resonators. By using an oscillating electric-field for inducing a mechanical resonance of single-crystalline Si NWs inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM), we observed resonance up to the 5

A key step in the development of new pharmaceutical drugs is that of identifying direct targets of the bioactive compounds, and distinguishing these from all other gene products that respond indirectly to the drug targets. Currently dominating approaches to this problem are based on often time consuming and costly experimental methods aimed at locating physical bindings of the corresponding small molecule to proteins or DNA sequences. In this paper we consider target identification based on time-series expression data of the corresponding gene regulatory network, using perturbation with the active compound only. As we show, the problem of identifying the direct targets can then be cast as a linear regression problem and, in principle, be accomplished with a number of samples equal to the number of involved genes and bioactive compounds. However, the regression matrix will typically be highly ill-conditioned and the target identification therefore prone even to small measurement uncertainties. In order to provide a label of confidence for the target identification, we consider conditions that can be used to quantify the robustness of the identification of individual drug targets with respect to uncertainty in the expression data. For this purpose, we cast the uncertain regression problem as a robust rank problem and employ SVD or the structured singular value to compute the robust rank. The proposed method is illustrated by application to a small scale gene regulatory network synthesised in yeast to serve as a benchmark problem in network inference.

Post-translational modifications of histones (e.g. acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation and ubiquitination) play crucial roles in regulating gene expression by altering chromatin structures and creating docking sites for histone/chromatin regulators. However, the combination patterns of histone modifications, regulatory proteins and their corresponding target genes remain incompletely understood. Therefore, it is advantageous to have a tool for the enrichment/depletion analysis of histone modifications and histone/chromatin regulators from a gene list. Many ChIP-chip/ChIP-seq datasets of histone modifications and histone/chromatin regulators in yeast can be found in the literature. Knowing the needs and having the data motivate us to develop a web tool, called Yeast Histone Modifications Identifier (YHMI), which can identify the enriched/depleted histone modifications and the enriched histone/chromatin regulators from a list of yeast genes. Both tables and figures are provided to visualize the identification results. Finally, the high-quality and biological insight of the identification results are demonstrated by two case studies. We believe that YHMI is a valuable tool for yeast biologists to do epigenetics research.

Respiratory viruses are highly infectious; however, the variation of individuals’ physiologic responses to viral exposure is poorly understood. Most studies examining molecular predictors of response focus on late stage predictors, typically near the time of peak symptoms. To determine whether pre- or early post-exposure factors could predict response, we conducted a community-based analysis to identify predictors of resilience or susceptibility to several respiratory viruses (H1N1, H3N2, Rhinovirus, and RSV) using peripheral blood gene expression profiles collected from healthy subjects prior to viral exposure, as well as up to 24 hours following exposure. This analysis revealed that it is possible to construct models predictive of symptoms using profiles even prior to viral exposure. Analysis of predictive gene features revealed little overlap among models; however, in aggregate, these genes were enriched for common pathways. Heme Metabolism, the most significantly enriched pathway, was associated with higher risk of developing symptoms following viral exposure.

Translational regulation plays an important role in protein synthesis. Dysregulation of translation causes abnormal cell physiology and leads to diseases such as inflammatory disorders and cancers. An emerging technique, called ribosome profiling (ribo-seq), was developed to capture a snapshot of translation. It is based on deep sequencing of ribosome-protected mRNA fragments. A lot of ribo-seq data have been generated in various studies, so databases are needed for depositing and visualizing the published ribo-seq data. Nowadays, GWIPS-viz, RPFdb and TranslatomeDB are the three largest databases developed for this purpose. However, two challenges remain to be addressed. First, GWIPS-viz and RPFdb databases align the published ribo-seq data to the genome. Since ribo-seq data aim to reveal the actively translated mRNA transcripts, there are advantages of aligning ribo-req data to the transcriptome over the genome. Second, TranslatomeDB does not provide any visualization and the other two databases only provide visualization of the ribo-seq data around a specific genomic location, while simultaneous visualization of the ribo-seq data on multiple mRNA transcripts produced from the same gene or different genes is desired. To address these two challenges, we developed the Human Ribosome Profiling Data viewer (HRPDviewer). HRPDviewer (i) contains 610 published human ribo-seq datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus, (ii) aligns the ribo-seq data to the transcriptome and (iii) provides visualization of the ribo-seq data on the selected mRNA transcripts. Using HRPDviewer, researchers can compare the ribosome binding patterns of multiple mRNA transcripts from the same gene or different genes to gain an accurate understanding of protein synthesis in human cells. We believe that HRPDviewer is a useful resource for researchers to study translational regulation in human. Database URL: http://cosbi4.ee.ncku.edu.tw/HRPDviewer/ or http://cosbi5.ee.ncku.edu.tw/HRPDviewer/

Statistical regularisation methods such as LASSO and related L1 regularised regression methods are commonly used to construct models of gene regulatory networks. Although they can theoretically infer the correct network structure, they have been shown in practice to make errors, i.e. leave out existing links and include non-existing links. We show that L1 regularisation methods typically produce a poor network model when the analysed data are ill-conditioned, i.e. the gene expression data matrix has a high condition number, even if it contains enough information for correct network inference. However, the correct structure of network models can be obtained for informative data, data with such a signal to noise ratio that existing links can be proven to exist, when these methods fail, by using least-squares regression and setting small parameters to zero, or by using robust network inference, a recent method taking the intersection of all non-rejectable models. Since available experimental data sets are generally ill-conditioned, we recommend to check the condition number of the data matrix to avoid this pitfall of L1 regularised inference, and to also consider alternative methods.

Wear mechanisms including fracture and plastic deformation at the nanoscale are central to understand sliding contacts. Recently, the combination of tip-induced material erosion with the sensing capability of secondary imaging modes of AFM, has enabled a slice-and-view tomographic technique named AFM tomography or Scalpel SPM. However, the elusive laws governing nanoscale wear and the large quantity of atoms involved in the tip-sample contact, require a dedicated mesoscale description to understand and model the tip-induced material removal. Here, we study nanosized sliding contacts made of diamond in the regime whereby thousands of nm3 are removed. We explore the fundamentals of high-pressure tip-induced material removal for various materials. Changes in the load force are systematically combined with AFM and SEM to increase the understanding and the process controllability. The nonlinear variation of the removal rate with the load force is interpreted as a combination of two contact regimes each dominating in a particular force range. By using the gradual transition between the two regimes, (1) the experimental rate of material eroded on each tip passage is modeled, (2) a controllable removal rate below 5 nm/scan for all the materials is demonstrated, thus opening to future development of 3D tomographic AFM.

Recent technological advancements have made time-resolved, quantitative, multi-omics data available for many model systems, which could be integrated for systems pharmacokinetic use. Here, we present large-scale simulation modeling (LASSIM), which is a novel mathematical tool for performing large-scale inference using mechanistically defined ordinary differential equations (ODE) for gene regulatory networks (GRNs). LASSIM integrates structural knowledge about regulatory interactions and non-linear equations with multiple steady state and dynamic response expression datasets. The rationale behind LASSIM is that biological GRNs can be simplified using a limited subset of core genes that are assumed to regulate all other gene transcription events in the network. The LASSIM method is implemented as a general-purpose toolbox using the PyGMO Python package to make the most of multicore computers and high performance clusters, and is available at https://gitlab.com/Gustafsson-lab/lassim. As a method, LASSIM works in two steps, where it first infers a non-linear ODE system of the pre-specified core gene expression. Second, LASSIM in parallel optimizes the parameters that model the regulation of peripheral genes by core system genes. We showed the usefulness of this method by applying LASSIM to infer a large-scale non-linear model of naïve Th2 cell differentiation, made possible by integrating Th2 specific bindings, time-series together with six public and six novel siRNA-mediated knock-down experiments. ChIP-seq showed significant overlap for all tested transcription factors. Next, we performed novel time-series measurements of total T-cells during differentiation towards Th2 and verified that our LASSIM model could monitor those data significantly better than comparable models that used the same Th2 bindings. In summary, the LASSIM toolbox opens the door to a new type of model-based data analysis that combines the strengths of reliable mechanistic models with truly systems-level data. We demonstrate the power of this approach by inferring a mechanistically motivated, genome-wide model of the Th2 transcription regulatory system, which plays an important role in several immune related diseases., Author summary There are excellent methods to mathematically model time-resolved biological data on a small scale using accurate mechanistic models. Despite the rapidly increasing availability of such data, mechanistic models have not been applied on a genome-wide level due to excessive runtimes and the non-identifiability of model parameters. However, genome-wide, mechanistic models could potentially answer key clinical questions, such as finding the best drug combinations to induce an expression change from a disease to a healthy state. We present LASSIM, which is a toolbox built to infer parameters within mechanistic models on a genomic scale. This is made possible due to a property shared across biological systems, namely the existence of a subset of master regulators, here denoted the core system. The introduction of a core system of genes simplifies the network inference into small solvable sub-problems, and implies that all main regulatory actions on peripheral genes come from a small set of regulator genes. This separation allows substantial parts of computations to be solved in parallel, i.e. permitting the use of a computer cluster, which substantially reduces computation time.

Background The progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) involves recurrent amplifications/mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and downstream signal transducers of the Ras pathway, KRAS and BRAF. Whether genetic events predicted to result in increased and constitutive signaling indeed lead to enhanced biological activity is often unclear and, due to technical challenges, unexplored. Here, we investigated proliferative signaling in CRC using a highly sensitive method for protein detection. The aim of the study was to determine whether multiple changes in proliferative signaling in CRC could be combined and exploited as a “complex biomarker” for diagnostic purposes. Methods We used robotized capillary isoelectric focusing as well as conventional immunoblotting for the comprehensive analysis of epidermal growth factor receptor signaling pathways converging on extracellular regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), AKT, phospholipase Cγ1 (PLCγ1) and c-SRC in normal mucosa compared with CRC stage II and IV. Computational analyses were used to test different activity patterns for the analyzed signal transducers. Results Signaling pathways implicated in cell proliferation were differently dysregulated in CRC and, unexpectedly, several were downregulated in disease. Thus, levels of activated ERK1 (pERK1), but not pERK2, decreased in stage II and IV while total ERK1/2 expression remained unaffected. In addition, c-SRC expression was lower in CRC compared with normal tissues and phosphorylation on the activating residue Y418 was not detected. In contrast, PLCγ1 and AKT expression levels were elevated in disease. Immunoblotting of the different signal transducers, run in parallel to capillary isoelectric focusing, showed higher variability and lower sensitivity and resolution. Computational analyses showed that, while individual signaling changes lacked predictive power, using the combination of changes in three signaling components to create a “complex biomarker” allowed with very high accuracy, the correct diagnosis of tissues as either normal or cancerous. Conclusions We present techniques that allow rapid and sensitive determination of cancer signaling that can be used to differentiate colorectal cancer from normal tissue. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-016-2725-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Analysis of gene expression data sets reveals that the variation in expression is concentrated to significantly fewer 'characteristic modes' or 'eigengenes' than the number of both recorded assays and measured genes. Previous works have stressed the importance of these characteristic modes, but neglected the equally important weak modes. Herein a generic system property - interampatteness - is defined that explains the previous feature, and assigns equal weight to the characteristic and weak modes. An interampatte network is characterised by strong INTERactions enabling simultaneous AMPlification and ATTEnuation of different signals. It is postulated that biochemical networks are interampatte, based on published experimental data and theoretical considerations. Existence of multiple time-scales and feedback loops is shown to increase the degree of interampatteness. Interampatteness has strong implications for the dynamics and reverse engineering of the network. One consequence is highly correlated changes in gene expression in response to external perturbations, even in the absence of common transcription factors, implying that interampatte gene regulatory networks erroneously may be assumed to have co-expressed/co-regulated genes. Data compression or reduction of the system dimensionality using clustering, singular value decomposition, principal component analysis or some other data mining technique results in a loss of information that will obstruct reconstruction of the underlying network. [Includes supplementary material].

Global optimisation and search problems are abundant in science and engineering, including spectroscopy and its applications. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that general optimisation and search methods such as genetic algorithms (GAs) have also found applications in the area of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. A brief introduction to genetic algorithms, their objectives and applications in NIR spectroscopy, as well as in chemometrics, is given. The most popular application for GAs in NIR spectroscopy is wavelength, or more generally speaking, variable selection. GAs are both frequently used and convenient in multi-criteria optimisation; for example, selection of pre-processing methods, wavelength inclusion, and selection of latent variables can be optimised simultaneously. Wavelet transform has recently been applied to pre-processing of NIR data. In particular, hybrid methods of wavelets and genetic algorithms have in a number of research papers been applied to pre-processing, wavelength selection and regression with good success. In all calibrations and, in particular, when optimising, it is essential to validate the model and to avoid over-fitting. GAs have a large potential when addressing these two major problems and we believe that many future applications will emerge. To conclude, optimisation gives good opportunities to simultaneously develop an accurate calibration model and to regulate model complexity and prediction ability within a considered validation framework.

The acute effects of sun-bathing on the near-infrared absorption spectra of human skin were studied by exposing the shoulders of a male test subject to bright Finnish high summer mid-day sun. The spectra were measured before, immediately after and for several days after exposure. Four different spectral processing and classification methods were applied to the data set to identify differences caused by exposure to the sun. The spectrophotometer and measuring procedure were found to cause some systematic errors, calling for further development, even though they could, to a large extent, be compensated for computationally. Spectral regions indicating ultraviolet radiation-induced erythema were located and the degree of erythema could be predicted correctly but the signal is weak. This paper discusses promising wavelength selection methods to study the dermal effects of exposure to the sun, as well as difficulties and remedies of near infrared spectroscopic measurements of the skin.

Motivation: Gene regulatory network (GRN) inference reveals the influences genes have on one another in cellular regulatory systems. If the experimental data are inadequate for reliable inference of the network, informative priors have been shown to improve the accuracy of inferences. Results: This study explores the potential of undirected, confidence-weighted networks, such as those in functional association databases, as a prior source for GRN inference. Such networks often erroneously indicate symmetric interaction between genes and may contain mostly correlation-based interaction information. Despite these drawbacks, our testing on synthetic datasets indicates that even noisy priors reflect some causal information that can improve GRN inference accuracy. Our analysis on yeast data indicates that using the functional association databases FunCoup and STRING as priors can give a small improvement in GRN inference accuracy with biological data. Contact: matthew.studham@scilifelab.se Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Gene regulatory network inference (that is, determination of the regulatory interactions between a set of genes) provides mechanistic insights of central importance to research in systems biology. Most contemporary network inference methods rely on a sparsity/regularization coefficient, which we call ζ (zeta), to determine the degree of sparsity of the network estimates, that is, the total number of links between the nodes. However, they offer little or no advice on how to select this sparsity coefficient, in particular, for biological data with few samples. We show that an empty network is more accurate than estimates obtained for a poor choice of ζ. In order to avoid such poor choices, we propose a method for optimization of ζ, which maximizes the accuracy of the inferred network for any sparsity-dependent inference method and data set. Our procedure is based on leave-one-out cross-optimization and selection of the ζ value that minimizes the prediction error. We also illustrate the adverse effects of noise, few samples, and uninformative experiments on network inference as well as our method for optimization of ζ. We demonstrate that our ζ optimization method for two widely used inference algorithms--Glmnet and NIR--gives accurate and informative estimates of the network structure, given that the data is informative enough.

DNA copy number aberrations (CNAs) are a characteristic feature of cancer genomes. In this work, Rebecka Jörnsten, Sven Nelander and colleagues combine network modeling and experimental methods to analyze the systems-level effects of CNAs in glioblastoma., We introduce a modeling approach termed EPoC (Endogenous Perturbation analysis of Cancer), enabling the construction of global, gene-level models that causally connect gene copy number with expression in glioblastoma. On the basis of the resulting model, we predict genes that are likely to be disease-driving and validate selected predictions experimentally. We also demonstrate that further analysis of the network model by sparse singular value decomposition allows stratification of patients with glioblastoma into short-term and long-term survivors, introducing decomposed network models as a useful principle for biomarker discovery. Finally, in systematic comparisons, we demonstrate that EPoC is computationally efficient and yields more consistent results than mRNA-only methods, standard eQTL methods, and two recent multivariate methods for genotype–mRNA coupling., Gains and losses of chromosomal material (DNA copy number aberrations; CNAs) are a characteristic feature of cancer genomes. At the level of a single locus, it is well known that increased copy number (gene amplification) typically leads to increased gene expression, whereas decreased copy number (gene deletion) leads to decreased gene expression (Pollack et al, 2002; Lee et al, 2008; Nilsson et al, 2008). However, CNAs also affect the expression of genes located outside the amplified/deleted region itself via indirect mechanisms. To fully understand the action of CNAs, it is therefore necessary to analyze their action in a network context. Toward this goal, improved computational approaches will be important, if not essential. To determine the global effects on transcription of CNAs in the brain tumor glioblastoma, we develop EPoC (Endogenous Perturbation analysis of Cancer), a computational technique capable of inferring sparse, causal network models by combining genome-wide, paired CNA- and mRNA-level data. EPoC aims to detect disease-driving copy number aberrations and their effect on target mRNA expression, and stratify patients into long-term and short-term survivors. Technically, EPoC relates CNA perturbations to mRNA responses by matrix equations, derived from a steady-state approximation of the transcriptional network. Patient prognostic scores are obtained from singular value decompositions of the network matrix. The models are constructed by solving a large-scale, regularized regression problem. We apply EPoC to glioblastoma data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) consortium (186 patients). The identified CNA-driven network comprises 10 672 genes, and contains a number of copy number-altered genes that control multiple downstream genes. Highly connected hub genes include well-known oncogenes and tumor supressor genes that are frequently deleted or amplified in glioblastoma, including EGFR, PDGFRA, CDKN2A and CDKN2B, confirming a clear association between these aberrations and transcriptional variability of these brain tumors. In addition, we identify a number of hub genes that have previously not been associated with glioblastoma, including interferon alpha 1 (IFNA1), myeloid/lymphoid or mixed-lineage leukemia translocated to 10 (MLLT10, a well-known leukemia gene), glutamate decarboxylase 2 GAD2, a postulated glutamate receptor GPR158 and Necdin (NDN). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the network model contains useful information on downstream target genes (including stem cell regulators), and possible drug targets. We proceed to explore the validity of a small network region experimentally. Introducing experimental perturbations of NDN and other targets in four glioblastoma cell lines (T98G, U-87MG, U-343MG and U-373MG), we confirm several predicted mechanisms. We also demonstrate that the TCGA glioblastoma patients can be stratified into long-term and short-term survivors, using our proposed prognostic scores derived from a singular vector decomposition of the network model. Finally, we compare EPoC to existing methods for mRNA networks analysis and expression quantitative locus methods, and demonstrate that EPoC produces more consistent models between technically independent glioblastoma data sets, and that the EPoC models exhibit better overlap with known protein–protein interaction networks and pathway maps. In summary, we conclude that large-scale integrative modeling reveals mechanistically and prognostically informative networks in human glioblastoma. Our approach operates at the gene level and our data support that individual hub genes can be identified in practice. Very large aberrations, however, cannot be fully resolved by the current modeling strategy., DNA copy number aberrations (CNAs) are a hallmark of cancer genomes. However, little is known about how such changes affect global gene expression. We develop a modeling framework, EPoC (Endogenous Perturbation analysis of Cancer), to (1) detect disease-driving CNAs and their effect on target mRNA expression, and to (2) stratify cancer patients into long- and short-term survivors. Our method constructs causal network models of gene expression by combining genome-wide DNA- and RNA-level data. Prognostic scores are obtained from a singular value decomposition of the networks. By applying EPoC to glioblastoma data from The Cancer Genome Atlas consortium, we demonstrate that the resulting network models contain known disease-relevant hub genes, reveal interesting candidate hubs, and uncover predictors of patient survival. Targeted validations in four glioblastoma cell lines support selected predictions, and implicate the p53-interacting protein Necdin in suppressing glioblastoma cell growth. We conclude that large-scale network modeling of the effects of CNAs on gene expression may provide insights into the biology of human cancer. Free software in MATLAB and R is provided.

Non-linear behaviour of biochemical networks, such as intracellular gene, protein or metabolic networks, is commonly represented using graphs of the underlying topology. Nodes represent abundance of molecules and edges interactions between pairs of molecules. These graphs are linear and thus based on an implicit linearization of the kinetic reactions in one or several dynamic modes of the total system. It is common to use data from different sources -- experiments conducted under different conditions or even on different species -- meaning that the graph will be a superposition of linearizations made in many different modes. The mixing of different modes makes it hard to identify functional modules, that is sub-systems that carry out a specific biological function, since the graph will contain many interactions that do not naturally occur at the same time. The ability to establish a boundary between the sub-system and its environment is critical in the definition of a module, contrary to a motif in which only internal interactions count. Identification of functional modules should therefore be done on graphs depicting the mode in which their function is carried out, i.e. graphs that only contain edges representing interactions active in the specific mode. In general, when an interaction between two molecules is established, one should always state the mode of the system in which it is active.