Inference of Surface Membrane Factors of HIV-1 Infection through Functional Interaction Networks

Background: HIV infection affects the populations of T helper cells, dendritic cells and macrophages. Moreover, it has a serious impact on the central nervous system. It is yet not clear whether this list is complete and why specifically those cell types are affected. To address this question, we have developed a method to identify cellular surface proteins that permit, mediate or enhance HIV infection in different cell/tissue types in HIV-infected individuals. Receptors associated with HIV infection share common functions and domains and are involved in similar cellular processes. These properties are exploited by bioinformatics techniques to predict novel cell surface proteins that potentially interact with HIV. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We compiled a set of surface membrane proteins (SMP) that are known to interact with HIV. This set is extended by proteins that have direct interaction and share functional similarity. This resulted in a comprehensive network around the initial SMP set. Using network centrality analysis we predict novel surface membrane factors from the annotated network. We identify 21 surface membrane factors, among which three have confirmed functions in HIV infection, seven have been identified by at least two other studies, and eleven are novel predictions and thus excellent targets for experimental investigation. CONCLUSIONS: Determining to what extent HIV can interact with human SMPs is an important step towards understanding patient specific disease progression. Using various bioinformatics techniques, we generate a set of surface membrane factors that constitutes a well-founded starting point for experimental testing of cell/tissue susceptibility of different HIV strains as well as for cohort studies evaluating patient specific disease progression

Quantification of pathway crosstalk reveals novel synergistic drug combinations for breast cancer

Combinatorial therapeutic approaches are an imperative to improve cancer treatment, because it is critical to impede compensatory signaling mechanisms that can engender drug resistance to individual targeted drugs. Currently approved drug combinations result largely from empirical clinical experience and cover only a small fraction of a vast therapeutic space. Here we present a computational network biology approach, based on pathway cross-talk inhibition, to discover new synergistic drug combinations for breast cancer treatment. In silico analysis identified 390 novel anticancer drug pairs belonging to 10 drug classes that are likely to diminish pathway cross-talk and display synergistic antitumor effects. Ten novel drug combinations were validated experimentally, and seven of these exhibited synergy in human breast cancer cell lines. In particular, we found that one novel combination, pairing the estrogen response modifier raloxifene with the c-Met/VEGFR2 kinase inhibitor cabozantinib, dramatically potentiated the drugs' individual antitumor effects in a mouse model of breast cancer. When compared with high-throughput combinatorial studies without computational prioritization, our approach offers a significant advance capable of uncovering broad-spectrum utility across many cancer types

Integrating protein-protein interactions and text mining for protein function prediction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Functional annotation of proteins remains a challenging task. Currently the scientific literature serves as the main source for yet uncurated functional annotations, but curation work is slow and expensive. Automatic techniques that support this work are still lacking reliability. We developed a method to identify conserved protein interaction graphs and to predict missing protein functions from orthologs in these graphs. To enhance the precision of the results, we furthermore implemented a procedure that validates all predictions based on findings reported in the literature.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using this procedure, more than 80% of the GO annotations for proteins with highly conserved orthologs that are available in UniProtKb/Swiss-Prot could be verified automatically. For a subset of proteins we predicted new GO annotations that were not available in UniProtKb/Swiss-Prot. All predictions were correct (100% precision) according to the verifications from a trained curator.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our method of integrating CCSs and literature mining is thus a highly reliable approach to predict GO annotations for weakly characterized proteins with orthologs.</p

Comparative analysis of long DNA sequences by per element information content using different contexts

BACKGROUND: Features of a DNA sequence can be found by compressing the sequence under a suitable model; good compression implies low information content. Good DNA compression models consider repetition, differences between repeats, and base distributions. From a linear DNA sequence, a compression model can produce a linear information sequence. Linear space complexity is important when exploring long DNA sequences of the order of millions of bases. Compressing a sequence in isolation will include information on self-repetition. Whereas compressing a sequence Y in the context of another X can find what new information X gives about Y. This paper presents a methodology for performing comparative analysis to find features exposed by such models. RESULTS: We apply such a model to find features across chromosomes of Cyanidioschyzon merolae. We present a tool that provides useful linear transformations to investigate and save new sequences. Various examples illustrate the methodology, finding features for sequences alone and in different contexts. We also show how to highlight all sets of self-repetition features, in this case within Plasmodium falciparum chromosome 2. CONCLUSION: The methodology finds features that are significant and that biologists confirm. The exploration of long information sequences in linear time and space is fast and the saved results are self documenting.

Combining modularity, conservation, and interactions of proteins significantly increases precision and coverage of protein function prediction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While the number of newly sequenced genomes and genes is constantly increasing, elucidation of their function still is a laborious and time-consuming task. This has led to the development of a wide range of methods for predicting protein functions in silico. We report on a new method that predicts function based on a combination of information about protein interactions, orthology, and the conservation of protein networks in different species.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that aggregation of these independent sources of evidence leads to a drastic increase in number and quality of predictions when compared to baselines and other methods reported in the literature. For instance, our method generates more than 12,000 novel protein functions for human with an estimated precision of ~76%, among which are 7,500 new functional annotations for 1,973 human proteins that previously had zero or only one function annotated. We also verified our predictions on a set of genes that play an important role in colorectal cancer (<it>MLH1</it>, <it>PMS2</it>, <it>EPHB4 </it>) and could confirm more than 73% of them based on evidence in the literature.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The combination of different methods into a single, comprehensive prediction method infers thousands of protein functions for every species included in the analysis at varying, yet always high levels of precision and very good coverage.</p

沃度保兒謨ニ因セル濕疹

Evaluation of CNA-IC50 correlations by known cancer driver mutations. Distributions of PCCs for cancer cell lines with mutated or wild-type proto-oncogenes or tumor suppressors as depicted in each figure. The rank position of negatively correlated drugs (p < 0.10) is shown. (EPS 975 kb

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Network-based inference of protein function and disease-gene association

Proteininteraktionen sind entscheidend für zelluläre Funktion. Interaktionen reflektieren direkte funktionale Beziehungen zwischen Proteinen. Veränderungen in spezifischen Interaktionsmustern tragen zur Entstehung von Krankheiten bei. In dieser Arbeit werden funktionale und pathologische Aspekte von Proteininteraktionen analysiert, um Funktionen für bisher nicht charakterisierte Proteine vorherzusagen und Proteine mit Krankheitsphänotypen zu assoziieren. Verschiedene Methoden wurden in den letzten Jahren entwickelt, die die funktionalen Eigenschaften von Proteinen untersuchen. Dennoch bleibt ein wesentlicher Teil der Proteine, insbesondere menschliche, uncharakterisiert. Wir haben eine Methode zur Vorhersage von Proteinfunktionen entwickelt, die auf Proteininteraktionsnetzwerken verschiedener Spezies beruht. Dieser Ansatz analysiert funktionale Module, die über evolutionär konservierte Prozesse definiert werden. In diesen Modulen werden Proteinfunktionen gemeinsam über Orthologiebeziehungen und Interaktionspartner vorhergesagt. Die Integration verschiedener funktionaler Ähnlichkeiten ermöglicht die Vorhersage neuer Proteinfunktionen mit hoher Genauigkeit und Abdeckung. Die Aufklärung von Krankheitsmechanismen ist wichtig, um ihre Entstehung zu verstehen und diagnostische und therapeutische Ansätze zu entwickeln. Wir stellen einen Ansatz für die Identifizierung krankheitsrelevanter Genprodukte vor, der auf der Kombination von Proteininteraktionen, Proteinfunktionen und Netzwerkzentralitätsanalyse basiert. Gegeben einer Krankheit, werden krankheitsspezifische Netzwerke durch die Integration von direkt und indirekt interagierender Genprodukte und funktionalen Informationen generiert. Proteine in diesen Netzwerken werden anhand ihrer Zentralität sortiert. Das Einbeziehen indirekter Interaktionen verbessert die Identifizierung von Krankheitsgenen deutlich. Die Verwendung von vorhergesagten Proteinfunktionen verbessert das Ranking von krankheitsrelevanten Proteinen.Protein interactions are essential to many aspects of cellular function. On the one hand, they reflect direct functional relationships. On the other hand, alterations in protein interactions perturb natural cellular processes and contribute to diseases. In this thesis we analyze both the functional and the pathological aspect of protein interactions to infer novel protein function for uncharacterized proteins and to associate yet uncharacterized proteins with disease phenotypes, respectively. Different experimental and computational approaches have been developed in the past to investigate the basic characteristics of proteins systematically. Yet, a substantial fraction of proteins remains uncharacterized, particularly in human. We present a novel approach to predict protein function from protein interaction networks of multiple species. The key to our method is to study proteins within modules defined by evolutionary conserved processes, combining comparative cross-species genomics with functional linkage in interaction networks. We show that integrating different evidence of functional similarity allows to infer novel functions with high precision and a very good coverage. Elucidating the pathological mechanisms is important for understanding the onset of diseases and for developing diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. We introduce a network-based framework for identifying disease-related gene products by combining protein interaction data and protein function with network centrality analysis. Given a disease, we compile a disease-specific network by integrating directly and indirectly linked gene products using protein interaction and functional information. Proteins in this network are ranked based on their network centrality. We demonstrate that using indirect interactions significantly improves disease gene identification. Predicted functions, in turn, enhance the ranking of disease-relevant proteins

Evaluation of Different 'Tensioning' of Apical Suspension in Women Undergoing Surgery for Prolapse and Urinary Incontinence

Background: According to the literature, restoration of pelvic organ prolapse also restores urinary continence. However, it is difficult to determine which exact surgical procedure actually led to urinary continence due to a lack of standardisation among these techniques. For example, an apical fixation is broadly defined in terms of type and shape of implanted material, anatomical fixation sides and tensioning. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of bilateral uterosacral ligament replacement with alloplastic tapes of defined lengths on symptoms of urinary incontinence. Patients and Methods: Patients with urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse underwent an apical suspension. Thereby, both uterosacral ligaments (USL) were replaced by alloplastic structures of defined length. These alloplastic tapes had defined lengths in all patients of 9, 10, or 11 cm in length. They were sutured on both sides of the cervix, placed in the left and right peritoneal fold of the USL, and were sutured laterally to the prevertebral fascial layer of the sacral vertebra at the level of S2. Furthermore, all patients received additional transobturator tape. Pelvic organ prolapse was classified according to the Baden-Walker system, and urinary incontinence symptoms according to validated questionnaires. Results: Four months after bilateral USL replacement, apical suspension was restored in all 31 patients. In addition, urinary continence was reestablished in 18 out of these 31 patients (58%). The highest continence rate was observed in patients in which both USL were replaced with alloplastic tapes of 9 cm in length. Conclusion: The findings indicated the importance of USL integrity for urinary continence. In particular, a defined length for both USL seems to be important for (re)establishing urinary continence