regutools

Reconstructing gene regulatory networks and transcription factor activity is crucial to understand biological processes and holds potential for developing personalized treatment. Yet, it is still an open problem as state-of-art algorithm are often not able to handle large amounts of data. Furthermore, many of the present methods predict numerous false positives and are unable to integrate other sources of information such as previously known interactions. Here we introduce KBoost, an algorithm that uses kernel PCA regression, boosting and Bayesian model averaging for fast and accurate reconstruction of gene regulatory networks. KBoost can also use a prior network built on previously known transcription factor targets. We have benchmarked KBoost using three different datasets against other high performing algorithms. The results show that our method compares favourably to other methods across datasets.

netZooR unifies the implementations of several Network Zoo methods (netzoo, netzoo.github.io) into a single package by creating interfaces between network inference and network analysis methods. Currently, the package has 3 methods for network inference including PANDA and its optimized implementation OTTER (network reconstruction using mutliple lines of biological evidence), LIONESS (single-sample network inference), and EGRET (genotype-specific networks). Network analysis methods include CONDOR (community detection), ALPACA (differential community detection), CRANE (significance estimation of differential modules), MONSTER (estimation of network transition states). In addition, YARN allows to process gene expresssion data for tissue-specific analyses and SAMBAR infers missing mutation data based on pathway information.

BioNERO aims to integrate all aspects of biological network inference in a single package, including data preprocessing, exploratory analyses, network inference, and analyses for biological interpretations. BioNERO can be used to infer gene coexpression networks (GCNs) and gene regulatory networks (GRNs) from gene expression data. Additionally, it can be used to explore topological properties of protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. GCN inference relies on the popular WGCNA algorithm. GRN inference is based on the "wisdom of the crowds" principle, which consists in inferring GRNs with multiple algorithms (here, CLR, GENIE3 and ARACNE) and calculating the average rank for each interaction pair. As all steps of network analyses are included in this package, BioNERO makes users avoid having to learn the syntaxes of several packages and how to communicate between them. Finally, users can also identify consensus modules across independent expression sets and calculate intra and interspecies module preservation statistics between different networks.

Gene regulatory networks model the underlying gene regulation hierarchies that drive gene expression and observed phenotypes. Epiregulon infers TF activity in single cells by constructing a gene regulatory network (regulons). This is achieved through integration of scATAC-seq and scRNA-seq data and incorporation of public bulk TF ChIP-seq data. Links between regulatory elements and their target genes are established by computing correlations between chromatin accessibility and gene expressions.

R package for transcriptional analysis based on transcriptograms, a method to analyze transcriptomes that projects expression values on a set of ordered proteins, arranged such that the probability that gene products participate in the same metabolic pathway exponentially decreases with the increase of the distance between two proteins of the ordering. Transcriptograms are, hence, genome wide gene expression profiles that provide a global view for the cellular metabolism, while indicating gene sets whose expressions are altered.

MIRit is an R package that provides several methods for investigating the relationships between miRNAs and genes in different biological conditions. In particular, MIRit allows to explore the functions of dysregulated miRNAs, and makes it possible to identify miRNA-gene regulatory axes that control biological pathways, thus enabling the users to unveil the complexity of miRNA biology. MIRit is an all-in-one framework that aims to help researchers in all the central aspects of an integrative miRNA-mRNA analyses, from differential expression analysis to network characterization.