scholarly journals Meta-analysis of RNA-seq studies reveals genes responsible for life stage-dominant functions in Schistosoma mansoni

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhigang Lu ◽  
Matthew Berriman

AbstractBackgroundSince the genome of the parasitic flatworm Schistosoma mansoni was sequenced in 2009, various RNA-seq studies have been conducted to investigate differential gene expression between certain life stages. Based on these studies, the overview of gene expression in all life stages can improve our understanding of S. mansoni genome biology.Methodspublicly available RNA-seq data covering all life stages and gonads were mapped to the latest S. mansoni genome. Read counts were normalised across all samples and differential expression analysis was preformed using the generalized linear model (GLM) approach.Resultswe revealed for the first time the dissimilarities among all life stages. Genes that are abundantly-expressed in all life stages, as well as those preferentially-expressed in certain stage(s), were determined. The latter reveals genes responsible for stage-dominant functions of the parasite, which can be a guidance for the investigation and annotation of gene functions. In addition, distinct differential expression patterns were observed between adjacent life stages, which not only correlate well with original individual studies, but also provide additional information on changes in gene expression during parasite transitions. Furthermore, thirteen novel housekeeping genes across all life stages were identified, which is valuable for quantitative studies (e.g., qPCR).Conclusionsthe metaanalysis provides valuable information on the expression and potential functions of S. mansoni genes across all life stages, and can facilitate basic as well as applied research for the community.

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Chun Chang ◽  
Yan Ding ◽  
Lingsheng Dong ◽  
Lang-Jing Zhu ◽  
Roderick V. Jensen ◽  
...  

Background Using DNA microarrays, we previously identified 451 genes expressed in 19 different human tissues. Although ubiquitously expressed, the variable expression patterns of these “housekeeping genes” (HKGs) could separate one normal human tissue type from another. Current focus on identifying “specific disease markers” is problematic as single gene expression in a given sample represents the specific cellular states of the sample at the time of collection. In this study, we examine the diagnostic and prognostic potential of the variable expressions of HKGs in lung cancers. Methods Microarray and RNA-seq data for normal lungs, lung adenocarcinomas (AD), squamous cell carcinomas of the lung (SQCLC), and small cell carcinomas of the lung (SCLC) were collected from online databases. Using 374 of 451 HKGs, differentially expressed genes between pairs of sample types were determined via two-sided, homoscedastic t-test. Principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering classified normal lung and lung cancers subtypes according to relative gene expression variations. We used uni- and multi-variate cox-regressions to identify significant predictors of overall survival in AD patients. Classifying genes were selected using a set of training samples and then validated using an independent test set. Gene Ontology was examined by PANTHER. Results This study showed that the differential expression patterns of 242, 245, and 99 HKGs were able to distinguish normal lung from AD, SCLC, and SQCLC, respectively. From these, 70 HKGs were common across the three lung cancer subtypes. These HKGs have low expression variation compared to current lung cancer markers (e.g., EGFR, KRAS) and were involved in the most common biological processes (e.g., metabolism, stress response). In addition, the expression pattern of 106 HKGs alone was a significant classifier of AD versus SQCLC. We further highlighted that a panel of 13 HKGs was an independent predictor of overall survival and cumulative risk in AD patients. Discussion Here we report HKG expression patterns may be an effective tool for evaluation of lung cancer states. For example, the differential expression pattern of 70 HKGs alone can separate normal lung tissue from various lung cancers while a panel of 106 HKGs was a capable class predictor of subtypes of non-small cell carcinomas. We also reported that HKGs have significantly lower variance compared to traditional cancer markers across samples, highlighting the robustness of a panel of genes over any one specific biomarker. Using RNA-seq data, we showed that the expression pattern of 13 HKGs is a significant, independent predictor of overall survival for AD patients. This reinforces the predictive power of a HKG panel across different gene expression measurement platforms. Thus, we propose the expression patterns of HKGs alone may be sufficient for the diagnosis and prognosis of individuals with lung cancer.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Lu ◽  
Y. Zhang ◽  
M. Berriman

AbstractRNA-seq approach can provide useful information about gene expression. Although several studies have been conducted in the parasite Schistosoma mansoni, the gene expression data is often limited to differential analysis between certain life stages. A recent meta-analysis of RNA-seq studies generated valuable expression data across all life stages of S. mansoni. To facilitate the use and visualisation of these data, we established an interactive web portal implementing not only data from above-mentioned analysis, but also functional aspects including conserved domains and associated pathways, as a complement to main databases for S. mansoni. Users can also visualise and analyse their own data via the web portal. The interactive visualisation implemented in the web portal can facilitate characterising schistosome genes for the research community.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takayuki Osabe ◽  
Kentaro Shimizu ◽  
Koji Kadota

Abstract Background RNA-seq is a tool for measuring gene expression and is commonly used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Gene clustering is used to classify DEGs with similar expression patterns for the subsequent analyses of data from experiments such as time-courses or multi-group comparisons. However, gene clustering has rarely been used for analyzing simple two-group data or differential expression (DE). In this study, we report a model-based clustering algorithm, MBCluster.Seq, that can be implemented using an R package for DE analysis.Results The input data originally used by MBCluster.Seq is DEGs, and the proposed method (called MBCdeg) uses all genes for the analysis. The method uses posterior probabilities of genes assigned to a cluster displaying non-DEG pattern for overall gene ranking. We compared the performance of MBCdeg with conventional R packages such as edgeR, DESeq2, and TCC that are specialized for DE analysis using simulated and real data. Our results showed that MBCdeg outperformed other methods when the proportion of DEG was less than 50%. However, the DEG identification using MBCdeg was less consistent than with conventional methods. We compared the effects of different normalization algorithms using MBCdeg, and performed an analysis using MBCdeg in combination with a robust normalization algorithm (called DEGES) that was not implemented in MBCluster.Seq. The new analysis method showed greater stability than using the original MBCdeg with the default normalization algorithm.Conclusions MBCdeg with DEGES normalization can be used in the identification of DEGs when the PDEG is relatively low. As the method is based on gene clustering, the DE result includes information on which expression pattern the gene belongs to. The new method may be useful for the analysis of time-course and multi-group data, where the classification of expression patterns is often required.


Author(s):  
Dionysios Fanidis ◽  
Panagiotis Moulos

Abstract The study of differential gene expression patterns through RNA-Seq comprises a routine task in the daily lives of molecular bioscientists, who produce vast amounts of data requiring proper management and analysis. Despite widespread use, there are still no widely accepted golden standards for the normalization and statistical analysis of RNA-Seq data, and critical biases, such as gene lengths and problems in the detection of certain types of molecules, remain largely unaddressed. Stimulated by these unmet needs and the lack of in-depth research into the potential of combinatorial methods to enhance the analysis of differential gene expression, we had previously introduced the PANDORA P-value combination algorithm while presenting evidence for PANDORA’s superior performance in optimizing the tradeoff between precision and sensitivity. In this article, we present the next generation of the algorithm along with a more in-depth investigation of its capabilities to effectively analyze RNA-Seq data. In particular, we show that PANDORA-reported lists of differentially expressed genes are unaffected by biases introduced by different normalization methods, while, at the same time, they comprise a reliable input option for downstream pathway analysis. Additionally, PANDORA outperforms other methods in detecting differential expression patterns in certain transcript types, including long non-coding RNAs.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alemu Takele Assefa ◽  
Katrijn De Paepe ◽  
Celine Everaert ◽  
Pieter Mestdagh ◽  
Olivier Thas ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTBackgroundProtein-coding RNAs (mRNA) have been the primary target of most transcriptome studies in the past, but in recent years, attention has expanded to include long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA). lncRNAs are typically expressed at low levels, and are inherently highly variable. This is a fundamental challenge for differential expression (DE) analysis. In this study, the performance of 14 popular tools for testing DE in RNA-seq data along with their normalization methods is comprehensively evaluated, with a particular focus on lncRNAs and low abundant mRNAs.ResultsThirteen performance metrics were used to evaluate DE tools and normalization methods using simulations and analyses of six diverse RNA-seq datasets. Non-parametric procedures are used to simulate gene expression data in such a way that realistic levels of expression and variability are preserved in the simulated data. Throughout the assessment, we kept track of the results for mRNA and lncRNA separately. All statistical models exhibited inferior performance for lncRNAs compared to mRNAs across all simulated scenarios and analysis of benchmark RNA-seq datasets. No single tool uniformly outperformed the others.ConclusionOverall, the linear modeling with empirical Bayes moderation (limma) and the nonparametric approach (SAMSeq) showed best performance: good control of the false discovery rate (FDR) and reasonable sensitivity. However, for achieving a sensitivity of at least 50%, more than 80 samples are required when studying expression levels in a realistic clinical settings such as in cancer research. About half of the methods showed severe excess of false discoveries, making these methods unreliable for differential expression analysis and jeopardizing reproducible science. The detailed results of our study can be consulted through a user-friendly web application, http://statapps.ugent.be/tools/AppDGE/


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anish M.S. Shrestha ◽  
Joyce Emlyn B. Guiao ◽  
Kyle Christian R. Santiago

AbstractRNA-seq is being increasingly adopted for gene expression studies in a panoply of non-model organisms, with applications spanning the fields of agriculture, aquaculture, ecology, and environment. Conventional differential expression analysis for organisms without reference sequences requires performing computationally expensive and error-prone de-novo transcriptome assembly, followed by homology search against a high-confidence protein database for functional annotation. We propose a shortcut, where we obtain counts for differential expression analysis by directly aligning RNA-seq reads to the protein database. Through experiments on simulated and real data, we show drastic reductions in run-time and memory usage, with no loss in accuracy. A Snakemake implementation of our workflow is available at:https://bitbucket.org/project_samar/samar


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takayuki Osabe ◽  
Kentaro Shimizu ◽  
Koji Kadota

Abstract Background RNA-seq is a tool for measuring gene expression and is commonly used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Gene clustering is used to classify DEGs with similar expression patterns for the subsequent analyses of data from experiments such as time-courses or multi-group comparisons. However, gene clustering has rarely been used for analyzing simple two-group data or differential expression (DE). In this study, we report that a model-based clustering algorithm implemented in an R package, MBCluster.Seq, can also be used for DE analysis. Results The input data originally used by MBCluster.Seq is DEGs, and the proposed method (called MBCdeg) uses all genes for the analysis. The method uses posterior probabilities of genes assigned to a cluster displaying non-DEG pattern for overall gene ranking. We compared the performance of MBCdeg with conventional R packages such as edgeR, DESeq2, and TCC that are specialized for DE analysis using simulated and real data. Our results showed that MBCdeg outperformed other methods when the proportion of DEG (PDEG) was less than 50%. However, the DEG identification using MBCdeg was less consistent than with conventional methods. We compared the effects of different normalization algorithms using MBCdeg, and performed an analysis using MBCdeg in combination with a robust normalization algorithm (called DEGES) that was not implemented in MBCluster.Seq. The new analysis method showed greater stability than using the original MBCdeg with the default normalization algorithm. Conclusions MBCdeg with DEGES normalization can be used in the identification of DEGs when the PDEG is relatively low. As the method is based on gene clustering, the DE result includes information on which expression pattern the gene belongs to. The new method may be useful for the analysis of time-course and multi-group data, where the classification of expression patterns is often required.


Life ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
Libi Hertzberg ◽  
Ada H Zohar ◽  
Assif Yitzhaky

Background: One of the most studied molecular models of gene-environment interactions is that of FKBP5, which has been shown to interact with childhood adversity to increase the risk of psychiatric disorders, and has been implicated in schizophrenia. While the model predicts up-regulation of FKBP5, previous brain samples gene expression studies yielded inconsistent results. Methods: We performed a systematic gene expression meta-analysis of FKBP5 and NR3C1, a glucocorticoid receptor inhibited by FKBP5, in cerebellum samples of patients with schizophrenia. The gene expression databases GEO, SMRI and those of NIMH were searched, and out of six screened datasets, three were eligible for the meta-analysis (overall 69 with schizophrenia and 78 controls). Results: We detected up-regulation of FKBP5 and down-regulation of NR3C1 in schizophrenia, and a negative correlation between their expression patterns. Correlation analysis suggested that the detected differential expression did not result from potential confounding factors. Conclusions: Our results give significant support to the FKBP5 gene-environment interaction model for schizophrenia, which provides a molecular mechanism by which childhood adversity is involved in the development of the disorder. To explore FKBP5’s potential as a therapeutic target, a mapping of its differential expression patterns in different brain regions of schizophrenia patients is needed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aedan G. K. Roberts ◽  
Daniel R. Catchpoole ◽  
Paul J. Kennedy

AbstractBackgroundDifferential expression analysis of RNA-seq data has advanced rapidly since the introduction of the technology, and methods such as edgeR and DESeq2 have become standard parts of analysis pipelines. However, there is a growing body of research showing that differences in variability of gene expression or overall differences in the distribution of expression values – differential distribution – are also important both in normal biology and in diseases including cancer. Genes whose expression differs in distribution without a difference in mean expression level are ignored by differential expression methods.ResultsWe have developed a Bayesian hierarchical model which improves on existing methods for identifying differential dispersion in RNA-seq data, and provides an overall test for differential distribution. We have applied these methods to investigate differential dispersion and distribution in cancer using RNA-seq datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Our results show that differential dispersion and distribution are able to identify cancer-related genes. Further, we find that differential dispersion identifies cancer-related genes that are missed by differential expression analysis, and that differential expression and differential dispersion identify functionally distinct sets of genes.ConclusionThis work highlights the importance of considering changes beyond differences in mean in the analysis of gene expression data, and suggests that analysis of expression variability may provide insights into genetic aspects of cancer that would not be revealed by differential expression analysis alone. For identification of cancer-related genes, differential distribution analysis allows the identification of genes whose expression is disrupted in terms of either mean or variability.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishan Gupta ◽  
Manan Lalit ◽  
Aditya Biswas ◽  
Ujjwal Maulik ◽  
Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay ◽  
...  

1AbstractSystematic delineation of complex biological systems is an ever-challenging and resource-intensive process. Single cell transcriptomics allows us to study cell-to-cell variability in complex tissues at an unprecedented resolution. Accurate modeling of gene expression plays a critical role in the statistical determination of tissue-specific gene expression patterns. In the past few years, considerable efforts have been made to identify appropriate parametric models for single cell expression data. The zero-inflated version of Poisson/Negative Binomial and Log-Normal distributions have emerged as the most popular alternatives due to their ability to accommodate high dropout rates, as commonly observed in single cell data. While the majority of the parametric approaches directly model expression estimates, we explore the potential of modeling expression-ranks, as robust surrogates for transcript abundance. Here we examined the performance of the Discrete Generalized Beta Distribution (DGBD) on real data and devised a Wald-type test for comparing gene expression across two phenotypically divergent groups of single cells. We performed a comprehensive assessment of the proposed method, to understand its advantages as compared to some of the existing best practice approaches. Besides striking a reasonable balance between Type 1 and Type 2 errors, we concluded that ROSeq, the proposed differential expression test is exceptionally robust to expression noise and scales rapidly with increasing sample size. For wider dissemination and adoption of the method, we created an R package called ROSeq, and made it available on the Bioconductor platform.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document