Mulcom

The core function of this R package is to provide the implementation of the well-cited and well-reviewed QUBIC algorithm, aiming to deliver an effective and efficient biclustering capability. This package also includes the following related functions: (i) a qualitative representation of the input gene expression data, through a well-designed discretization way considering the underlying data property, which can be directly used in other biclustering programs; (ii) visualization of identified biclusters using heatmap in support of overall expression pattern analysis; (iii) bicluster-based co-expression network elucidation and visualization, where different correlation coefficient scores between a pair of genes are provided; and (iv) a generalize output format of biclusters and corresponding network can be freely downloaded so that a user can easily do following comprehensive functional enrichment analysis (e.g. DAVID) and advanced network visualization (e.g. Cytoscape).

The ASURI (Analysis of SUrvival and patients RIsk prediction based on gene signatures) package discovers marker genes that are related to risk prediction capabilities and to a clinical variable of interest. It uses two main steps, including subsampling glmnet and unicox. The package implements robust functions to discover survival markers related to a clinical phenotype and to predict a risk score, allowing to study the patient's risk based on the gene signatures. Several plots are provided to visualise the relevance of the genes, the risk score, and patient stratification, as well as a robust version of the Kaplan-Meier curves.

Integrating an increasing number of available multi-omics cancer data remains one of the main challenges to improve our understanding of cancer. One of the main challenges is using multi-omics data for identifying novel cancer driver genes. We have developed an algorithm, called AMARETTO, that integrates copy number, DNA methylation and gene expression data to identify a set of driver genes by analyzing cancer samples and connects them to clusters of co-expressed genes, which we define as modules. We applied AMARETTO in a pancancer setting to identify cancer driver genes and their modules on multiple cancer sites. AMARETTO captures modules enriched in angiogenesis, cell cycle and EMT, and modules that accurately predict survival and molecular subtypes. This allows AMARETTO to identify novel cancer driver genes directing canonical cancer pathways.

BANDITS is a Bayesian hierarchical model for detecting differential splicing of genes and transcripts, via differential transcript usage (DTU), between two or more conditions. The method uses a Bayesian hierarchical framework, which allows for sample specific proportions in a Dirichlet-Multinomial model, and samples the allocation of fragments to the transcripts. Parameters are inferred via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques and a DTU test is performed via a multivariate Wald test on the posterior densities for the average relative abundance of transcripts.

distinct is a statistical method to perform differential testing between two or more groups of distributions; differential testing is performed via hierarchical non-parametric permutation tests on the cumulative distribution functions (cdfs) of each sample. While most methods for differential expression target differences in the mean abundance between conditions, distinct, by comparing full cdfs, identifies, both, differential patterns involving changes in the mean, as well as more subtle variations that do not involve the mean (e.g., unimodal vs. bi-modal distributions with the same mean). distinct is a general and flexible tool: due to its fully non-parametric nature, which makes no assumptions on how the data was generated, it can be applied to a variety of datasets. It is particularly suitable to perform differential state analyses on single cell data (i.e., differential analyses within sub-populations of cells), such as single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and high-dimensional flow or mass cytometry (HDCyto) data. To use distinct one needs data from two or more groups of samples (i.e., experimental conditions), with at least 2 samples (i.e., biological replicates) per group.

DifferentialRegulation is a method for detecting differentially regulated genes between two groups of samples (e.g., healthy vs. disease, or treated vs. untreated samples), by targeting differences in the balance of spliced and unspliced mRNA abundances, obtained from single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. From a mathematical point of view, DifferentialRegulation accounts for the sample-to-sample variability, and embeds multiple samples in a Bayesian hierarchical model. Furthermore, our method also deals with two major sources of mapping uncertainty: i) 'ambiguous' reads, compatible with both spliced and unspliced versions of a gene, and ii) reads mapping to multiple genes. In particular, ambiguous reads are treated separately from spliced and unsplced reads, while reads that are compatible with multiple genes are allocated to the gene of origin. Parameters are inferred via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques (Metropolis-within-Gibbs).