DoGeNetS: using optimisation to discriminate regulatory network topologies based on gene expression data

Integrative Modelling of Gene Expression and Digital Phenotypes to Describe Senescence in Wheat

Senescence is the final stage of leaf development and is critical for plants' fitness as nutrient relocation from leaves to reproductive organs takes place. Although senescence is key in nutrient relocation and yield determination in cereal grain production, there is limited understanding of the genetic and molecular mechanisms that control it in major staple crops such as wheat. Senescence is a highly orchestrated continuum of interacting pathways throughout the lifecycle of a plant. Levels of gene expression, morphogenesis, and phenotypic development all play key roles. Yet, most studies focus on a short window immediately after anthesis. This approach clearly leaves out key components controlling the activation, development, and modulation of the senescence pathway before anthesis, as well as during the later developmental stages, during which grain development continues. Here, a computational multiscale modelling approach integrates multi-omics developmental data to attempt to simulate senescence at the molecular and plant level. To recreate the senescence process in wheat, core principles were borrowed from Arabidopsis Thaliana, a more widely researched plant model. The resulted model describes temporal gene regulatory networks and their effect on plant morphology leading to senescence. Digital phenotypes generated from images using a phenomics platform were used to capture the dynamics of plant development. This work provides the basis for the application of computational modelling to advance understanding of the complex biological trait senescence. This supports the development of a predictive framework enabling its prediction in changing or extreme environmental conditions, with a view to targeted selection for optimal lifecycle duration for improving resilience to climate change.

Reverse engineering gene regulatory networks: coupling an optimization algorithm with a parameter identification technique

Background

To infer gene regulatory networks from time series gene profiles, two important tasks that are related to biological systems must be undertaken. One task is to determine a valid network structure that has topological properties that can influence the network dynamics profoundly. The other task is to optimize the network parameters to minimize the accumulated discrepancy between the gene expression data and the values produced by the inferred network model. Though the above two tasks must be conducted simultaneously, most existing work addresses only one of the tasks.

Results

We propose an iterative approach that couples parameter identification and parameter optimization techniques, to address the two tasks simultaneously during network inference. This approach first identifies the most influential parameters against internal perturbations; this identification is based on sensitivity measurements. Then, a hybrid GA-PSO optimization method infers parameters in accordance with their criticalities. The proposed approach has been applied to several datasets, including subsets of the SOS DNA repair system in E. coli, the Rat central nervous system (CNS), and the protein glycosylation system of yeast S. cerevisiae. The result and analysis show that our approach can infer solutions to satisfy both the requirements of network structure and network behavior.

Conclusions

Network structure is an important though challenging issue to address in inferring sophisticated networks with biological details. In need of prior structural knowledge, we turn to measure parameter sensitivity instead to account for the network structure in an indirect way. By developing an integrated approach for considering both the network structure and behavior in the inference process, we can successfully infer critical gene interactions as well as valid time expression profiles.