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Liu T, Zhu H, Wang Z. Learning Micro-C from Hi-C with diffusion models. PLoS Comput Biol 2024; 20:e1012136. [PMID: 38758956 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2023] [Accepted: 05/05/2024] [Indexed: 05/19/2024] Open
Abstract
In the last few years, Micro-C has shown itself as an improved alternative to Hi-C. It replaced the restriction enzymes in Hi-C assays with micrococcal nuclease (MNase), resulting in capturing nucleosome resolution chromatin interactions. The signal-to-noise improvement of Micro-C allows it to detect more chromatin loops than high-resolution Hi-C. However, compared with massive Hi-C datasets available in the literature, there are only a limited number of Micro-C datasets. To take full advantage of these Hi-C datasets, we present HiC2MicroC, a computational method learning and then predicting Micro-C from Hi-C based on the denoising diffusion probabilistic models (DDPM). We trained our DDPM and other regression models in human foreskin fibroblast (HFFc6) cell line and evaluated these methods in six different cell types at 5-kb and 1-kb resolution. Our evaluations demonstrate that both HiC2MicroC and regression methods can markedly improve Hi-C towards Micro-C, and our DDPM-based HiC2MicroC outperforms regression in various terms. First, HiC2MicroC successfully recovers most of the Micro-C loops even those not detected in Hi-C maps. Second, a majority of the HiC2MicroC-recovered loops anchor CTCF binding sites in a convergent orientation. Third, HiC2MicroC loops share genomic and epigenetic properties with Micro-C loops, including linking promoters and enhancers, and their anchors are enriched for structural proteins (CTCF and cohesin) and histone modifications. Lastly, we find our recovered loops are also consistent with the loops identified from promoter capture Micro-C (PCMicro-C) and Chromatin Interaction Analysis by Paired-End Tag Sequencing (ChIA-PET). Overall, HiC2MicroC is an effective tool for further studying Hi-C data with Micro-C as a template. HiC2MicroC is publicly available at https://github.com/zwang-bioinformatics/HiC2MicroC/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tong Liu
- Department of Computer Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, United States of America
| | - Hao Zhu
- Department of Computer Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, United States of America
| | - Zheng Wang
- Department of Computer Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, United States of America
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2
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Min A, Schreiber J, Kundaje A, Noble WS. Predicting chromatin conformation contact maps. bioRxiv 2024:2024.04.12.589240. [PMID: 38645064 PMCID: PMC11030330 DOI: 10.1101/2024.04.12.589240] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/23/2024]
Abstract
Over the past 15 years, a variety of next-generation sequencing assays have been developed for measuring the 3D conformation of DNA in the nucleus. Each of these assays gives, for a particular cell or tissue type, a distinct picture of 3D chromatin architecture. Accordingly, making sense of the relationship between genome structure and function requires teasing apart two closely related questions: how does chromatin 3D structure change from one cell type to the next, and how do different measurements of that structure differ from one another, even when the two assays are carried out in the same cell type? In this work, we assemble a collection of chromatin 3D datasets-each represented as a 2D contact map- spanning multiple assay types and cell types. We then build a machine learning model that predicts missing contact maps in this collection. We use the model to systematically explore how genome 3D architecture changes, at the level of compartments, domains, and loops, between cell type and between assay types.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alan Min
- Department of Statistics, University of Washington
| | | | | | - William Stafford Noble
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington
- Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington
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3
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Wall BPG, Nguyen M, Harrell JC, Dozmorov MG. Machine and deep learning methods for predicting 3D genome organization. ArXiv 2024:arXiv:2403.03231v1. [PMID: 38495565 PMCID: PMC10942493] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/19/2024]
Abstract
Three-Dimensional (3D) chromatin interactions, such as enhancer-promoter interactions (EPIs), loops, Topologically Associating Domains (TADs), and A/B compartments play critical roles in a wide range of cellular processes by regulating gene expression. Recent development of chromatin conformation capture technologies has enabled genome-wide profiling of various 3D structures, even with single cells. However, current catalogs of 3D structures remain incomplete and unreliable due to differences in technology, tools, and low data resolution. Machine learning methods have emerged as an alternative to obtain missing 3D interactions and/or improve resolution. Such methods frequently use genome annotation data (ChIP-seq, DNAse-seq, etc.), DNA sequencing information (k-mers, Transcription Factor Binding Site (TFBS) motifs), and other genomic properties to learn the associations between genomic features and chromatin interactions. In this review, we discuss computational tools for predicting three types of 3D interactions (EPIs, chromatin interactions, TAD boundaries) and analyze their pros and cons. We also point out obstacles of computational prediction of 3D interactions and suggest future research directions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brydon P. G. Wall
- Center for Biological Data Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23284, USA
| | - My Nguyen
- Department of Biostatistics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23298, USA
| | - J. Chuck Harrell
- Department of Pathology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23284, USA
- Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298, USA
- Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298, USA
| | - Mikhail G. Dozmorov
- Department of Biostatistics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23298, USA
- Department of Pathology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23284, USA
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Zhang Y, Boninsegna L, Yang M, Misteli T, Alber F, Ma J. Computational methods for analysing multiscale 3D genome organization. Nat Rev Genet 2024; 25:123-141. [PMID: 37673975 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-023-00638-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/12/2023] [Indexed: 09/08/2023]
Abstract
Recent progress in whole-genome mapping and imaging technologies has enabled the characterization of the spatial organization and folding of the genome in the nucleus. In parallel, advanced computational methods have been developed to leverage these mapping data to reveal multiscale three-dimensional (3D) genome features and to provide a more complete view of genome structure and its connections to genome functions such as transcription. Here, we discuss how recently developed computational tools, including machine-learning-based methods and integrative structure-modelling frameworks, have led to a systematic, multiscale delineation of the connections among different scales of 3D genome organization, genomic and epigenomic features, functional nuclear components and genome function. However, approaches that more comprehensively integrate a wide variety of genomic and imaging datasets are still needed to uncover the functional role of 3D genome structure in defining cellular phenotypes in health and disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zhang
- Computational Biology Department, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Lorenzo Boninsegna
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics and Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Muyu Yang
- Computational Biology Department, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Tom Misteli
- Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA.
| | - Frank Alber
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics and Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Jian Ma
- Computational Biology Department, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
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Klie A, Laub D, Talwar JV, Stites H, Jores T, Solvason JJ, Farley EK, Carter H. Predictive analyses of regulatory sequences with EUGENe. Nat Comput Sci 2023; 3:946-956. [PMID: 38177592 PMCID: PMC10768637 DOI: 10.1038/s43588-023-00544-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2023] [Accepted: 09/27/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
Deep learning has become a popular tool to study cis-regulatory function. Yet efforts to design software for deep-learning analyses in regulatory genomics that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) have fallen short of fully meeting these criteria. Here we present elucidating the utility of genomic elements with neural nets (EUGENe), a FAIR toolkit for the analysis of genomic sequences with deep learning. EUGENe consists of a set of modules and subpackages for executing the key functionality of a genomics deep learning workflow: (1) extracting, transforming and loading sequence data from many common file formats; (2) instantiating, initializing and training diverse model architectures; and (3) evaluating and interpreting model behavior. We designed EUGENe as a simple, flexible and extensible interface for streamlining and customizing end-to-end deep-learning sequence analyses, and illustrate these principles through application of the toolkit to three predictive modeling tasks. We hope that EUGENe represents a springboard towards a collaborative ecosystem for deep-learning applications in genomics research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam Klie
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - David Laub
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - James V Talwar
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | | | - Tobias Jores
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Joe J Solvason
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Emma K Farley
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Hannah Carter
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
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Umarov R, Hon CC. Enhancer target prediction: state-of-the-art approaches and future prospects. Biochem Soc Trans 2023; 51:1975-1988. [PMID: 37830459 DOI: 10.1042/bst20230917] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2023] [Revised: 10/02/2023] [Accepted: 10/02/2023] [Indexed: 10/14/2023]
Abstract
Enhancers are genomic regions that regulate gene transcription and are located far away from the transcription start sites of their target genes. Enhancers are highly enriched in disease-associated variants and thus deciphering the interactions between enhancers and genes is crucial to understanding the molecular basis of genetic predispositions to diseases. Experimental validations of enhancer targets can be laborious. Computational methods have thus emerged as a valuable alternative for studying enhancer-gene interactions. A variety of computational methods have been developed to predict enhancer targets by incorporating genomic features (e.g. conservation, distance, and sequence), epigenomic features (e.g. histone marks and chromatin contacts) and activity measurements (e.g. covariations of enhancer activity and gene expression). With the recent advances in genome perturbation and chromatin conformation capture technologies, data on experimentally validated enhancer targets are becoming available for supervised training of these methods and evaluation of their performance. In this review, we categorize enhancer target prediction methods based on their rationales and approaches. Then we discuss their merits and limitations and highlight the future directions for enhancer targets prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ramzan Umarov
- RIKEN Centre for Integrative Medical Sciences, Yokohama RIKEN Institute, Yokohama, Japan
| | - Chung-Chau Hon
- RIKEN Centre for Integrative Medical Sciences, Yokohama RIKEN Institute, Yokohama, Japan
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Kuang S, Pollard KS. Exploring the Roles of RNAs in Chromatin Architecture Using Deep Learning. bioRxiv 2023:2023.10.22.563498. [PMID: 37961712 PMCID: PMC10634726 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.22.563498] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2023]
Abstract
Recent studies have highlighted the impact of both transcription and transcripts on 3D genome organization, particularly its dynamics. Here, we propose a deep learning framework, called AkitaR, that leverages both genome sequences and genome-wide RNA-DNA interactions to investigate the roles of chromatin-associated RNAs (caRNAs) on genome folding in HFFc6 cells. In order to disentangle the cis- and trans-regulatory roles of caRNAs, we compared models with nascent transcripts, trans-located caRNAs, open chromatin data, or DNA sequence alone. Both nascent transcripts and trans-located caRNAs improved the models' predictions, especially at cell-type-specific genomic regions. Analyses of feature importance scores revealed the contribution of caRNAs at TAD boundaries, chromatin loops and nuclear sub-structures such as nuclear speckles and nucleoli to the models' predictions. Furthermore, we identified non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) known to regulate chromatin structures, such as MALAT1 and NEAT1, as well as several novel RNAs, RNY5, RPPH1, POLG-DT and THBS1-IT, that might modulate chromatin architecture through trans-interactions in HFFc6. Our modeling also suggests that transcripts from Alus and other repetitive elements may facilitate chromatin interactions through trans R-loop formation. Our findings provide new insights and generate testable hypotheses about the roles of caRNAs in shaping chromatin organization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuzhen Kuang
- Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology, San Francisco, CA
| | - Katherine S. Pollard
- Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology, San Francisco, CA
- Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA
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8
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Gunsalus LM, Keiser MJ, Pollard KS. In silico discovery of repetitive elements as key sequence determinants of 3D genome folding. Cell Genom 2023; 3:100410. [PMID: 37868032 PMCID: PMC10589630 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100410] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2022] [Revised: 11/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/31/2023] [Indexed: 10/24/2023]
Abstract
Natural and experimental genetic variants can modify DNA loops and insulating boundaries to tune transcription, but it is unknown how sequence perturbations affect chromatin organization genome wide. We developed a deep-learning strategy to quantify the effect of any insertion, deletion, or substitution on chromatin contacts and systematically scored millions of synthetic variants. While most genetic manipulations have little impact, regions with CTCF motifs and active transcription are highly sensitive, as expected. Our unbiased screen and subsequent targeted experiments also point to noncoding RNA genes and several families of repetitive elements as CTCF-motif-free DNA sequences with particularly large effects on nearby chromatin interactions, sometimes exceeding the effects of CTCF sites and explaining interactions that lack CTCF. We anticipate that our disruption tracks may be of broad interest and utility as a measure of 3D genome sensitivity, and our computational strategies may serve as a template for biological inquiry with deep learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura M. Gunsalus
- Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Michael J. Keiser
- Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Katherine S. Pollard
- Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
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9
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Baur B, Roy S. Predicting patient-specific enhancer-promoter interactions. Cell Rep Methods 2023; 3:100594. [PMID: 37751694 PMCID: PMC10545932 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100594] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2023] [Revised: 08/30/2023] [Accepted: 08/30/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023]
Abstract
Computational methods that can predict hard-to-measure modalities from those that are easier to measure, in a patient-specific manner, play a critical role in personalized medicine. In this issue of Cell Reports Methods, Khurana et al. present differential gene targets of accessible chromatin (DGTAC), an approach which predicts patient-specific enhancer-promoter interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brittany Baur
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, WI 53715, USA; The Max Harry Weil Institute of Critical Care Research & Innovation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Sushmita Roy
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, WI 53715, USA; Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715, USA.
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Xu J, Zhang P, Sun W, Zhang J, Zhang W, Hou C, Li L. EpiMCI: Predicting Multi-Way Chromatin Interactions from Epigenomic Signals. Biology (Basel) 2023; 12:1203. [PMID: 37759602 PMCID: PMC10525350 DOI: 10.3390/biology12091203] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2023] [Revised: 08/31/2023] [Accepted: 08/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/29/2023]
Abstract
The recently emerging high-throughput Pore-C (HiPore-C) can identify whole-genome high-order chromatin multi-way interactions with an ultra-high output, contributing to deciphering three-dimensional (3D) genome organization. However, it also brings new challenges to relevant data analysis. To alleviate this problem, we proposed the EpiMCI, a model for multi-way chromatin interaction prediction based on a hypergraph neural network with epigenomic signals as the input. The EpiMCI integrated separate hyperedge representations with coupling hyperedge information and obtained AUCs of 0.981 and 0.984 in the GM12878 and K562 datasets, respectively, which outperformed the current available method. Moreover, the EpiMCI can be applied to denoise the HiPore-C data and improve the data quality efficiently. Furthermore, the vertex embeddings extracted from the EpiMCI reflected the global chromatin architecture accurately. The principal component analysis suggested that it was well aligned with the activities of genomic regions at the chromatin compartment level. Taken together, the EpiMCI can accurately predict multi-way chromatin interactions and can be applied to studies relying on chromatin architecture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinsheng Xu
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Ping Zhang
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Weicheng Sun
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Junying Zhang
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Wenxue Zhang
- Food Science Program, Division of Food, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences, University of Missouri, 1406 E Rollins Street, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Chunhui Hou
- China State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China
| | - Li Li
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
- Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430074, China
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