Learning from multiple genomic information in cancer for diagnosis and prognosis

De nombreuses initiatives ont été mises en places pour caractériser d'un point de vue moléculaire de grandes cohortes de cancers à partir de diverses sources biologiques dans l'espoir de comprendre les altérations majeures impliquées durant la tumorogénèse. Les données mesurées incluent l'expression des gènes, les mutations et variations de copy-number, ainsi que des signaux épigénétiques tel que la méthylation de l'ADN. De grands consortium tels que “The Cancer Genome Atlas” (TCGA) ont déjà permis de rassembler plusieurs milliers d'échantillons cancéreux mis à la disposition du public. Nous contribuons dans cette thèse à analyser d'un point de vue mathématique les relations existant entre les différentes sources biologiques, valider et/ou généraliser des phénomènes biologiques à grande échelle par une analyse intégrative de données épigénétiques et génétiques.En effet, nous avons montré dans un premier temps que la méthylation de l'ADN était un marqueur substitutif intéressant pour jauger du caractère clonal entre deux cellules et permettait ainsi de mettre en place un outil clinique des récurrences de cancer du sein plus précis et plus stable que les outils actuels, afin de permettre une meilleure prise en charge des patients.D'autre part, nous avons dans un second temps permis de quantifier d'un point de vue statistique l'impact de la méthylation sur la transcription. Nous montrons l'importance d'incorporer des hypothèses biologiques afin de pallier au faible nombre d'échantillons par rapport aux nombre de variables.Enfin, nous montrons l'existence d'un phénomène biologique lié à l'apparition d'un phénotype d'hyperméthylation dans plusieurs cancers. Pour cela, nous adaptons des méthodes de régression en utilisant la similarité entre les différentes tâches de prédictions afin d'obtenir des signatures génétiques communes prédictives du phénotypes plus précises.En conclusion, nous montrons l'importance d'une collaboration biologique et statistique afin d'établir des méthodes adaptées aux problématiques actuelles en bioinformatique.Several initiatives have been launched recently to investigate the molecular characterisation of large cohorts of human cancers with various high-throughput technologies in order to understanding the major biological alterations related to tumorogenesis. The information measured include gene expression, mutations, copy-number variations, as well as epigenetic signals such as DNA methylation. Large consortiums such as “The Cancer Genome Atlas” (TCGA) have already gathered publicly thousands of cancerous and non-cancerous samples. We contribute in this thesis in the statistical analysis of the relationship between the different biological sources, the validation and/or large scale generalisation of biological phenomenon using an integrative analysis of genetic and epigenetic data.Firstly, we show the role of DNA methylation as a surrogate biomarker of clonality between cells which would allow for a powerful clinical tool for to elaborate appropriate treatments for specific patients with breast cancer relapses.In addition, we developed systematic statistical analyses to assess the significance of DNA methylation variations on gene expression regulation. We highlight the importance of adding prior knowledge to tackle the small number of samples in comparison with the number of variables. In return, we show the potential of bioinformatics to infer new interesting biological hypotheses.Finally, we tackle the existence of the universal biological phenomenon related to the hypermethylator phenotype. Here, we adapt regression techniques using the similarity between the different prediction tasks to obtain robust genetic predictive signatures common to all cancers and that allow for a better prediction accuracy.In conclusion, we highlight the importance of a biological and computational collaboration in order to establish appropriate methods to the current issues in bioinformatics that will in turn provide new biological insights

Apprentissage de données génomiques multiples pour le diagnostic et le pronostic du cancer

Several initiatives have been launched recently to investigate the molecular characterisation of large cohorts of human cancers with various high-throughput technologies in order to understanding the major biological alterations related to tumorogenesis. The information measured include gene expression, mutations, copy-number variations, as well as epigenetic signals such as DNA methylation. Large consortiums such as “The Cancer Genome Atlas” (TCGA) have already gathered publicly thousands of cancerous and non-cancerous samples. We contribute in this thesis in the statistical analysis of the relationship between the different biological sources, the validation and/or large scale generalisation of biological phenomenon using an integrative analysis of genetic and epigenetic data.Firstly, we show the role of DNA methylation as a surrogate biomarker of clonality between cells which would allow for a powerful clinical tool for to elaborate appropriate treatments for specific patients with breast cancer relapses.In addition, we developed systematic statistical analyses to assess the significance of DNA methylation variations on gene expression regulation. We highlight the importance of adding prior knowledge to tackle the small number of samples in comparison with the number of variables. In return, we show the potential of bioinformatics to infer new interesting biological hypotheses.Finally, we tackle the existence of the universal biological phenomenon related to the hypermethylator phenotype. Here, we adapt regression techniques using the similarity between the different prediction tasks to obtain robust genetic predictive signatures common to all cancers and that allow for a better prediction accuracy.In conclusion, we highlight the importance of a biological and computational collaboration in order to establish appropriate methods to the current issues in bioinformatics that will in turn provide new biological insights.De nombreuses initiatives ont été mises en places pour caractériser d'un point de vue moléculaire de grandes cohortes de cancers à partir de diverses sources biologiques dans l'espoir de comprendre les altérations majeures impliquées durant la tumorogénèse. Les données mesurées incluent l'expression des gènes, les mutations et variations de copy-number, ainsi que des signaux épigénétiques tel que la méthylation de l'ADN. De grands consortium tels que “The Cancer Genome Atlas” (TCGA) ont déjà permis de rassembler plusieurs milliers d'échantillons cancéreux mis à la disposition du public. Nous contribuons dans cette thèse à analyser d'un point de vue mathématique les relations existant entre les différentes sources biologiques, valider et/ou généraliser des phénomènes biologiques à grande échelle par une analyse intégrative de données épigénétiques et génétiques.En effet, nous avons montré dans un premier temps que la méthylation de l'ADN était un marqueur substitutif intéressant pour jauger du caractère clonal entre deux cellules et permettait ainsi de mettre en place un outil clinique des récurrences de cancer du sein plus précis et plus stable que les outils actuels, afin de permettre une meilleure prise en charge des patients.D'autre part, nous avons dans un second temps permis de quantifier d'un point de vue statistique l'impact de la méthylation sur la transcription. Nous montrons l'importance d'incorporer des hypothèses biologiques afin de pallier au faible nombre d'échantillons par rapport aux nombre de variables.Enfin, nous montrons l'existence d'un phénomène biologique lié à l'apparition d'un phénotype d'hyperméthylation dans plusieurs cancers. Pour cela, nous adaptons des méthodes de régression en utilisant la similarité entre les différentes tâches de prédictions afin d'obtenir des signatures génétiques communes prédictives du phénotypes plus précises.En conclusion, nous montrons l'importance d'une collaboration biologique et statistique afin d'établir des méthodes adaptées aux problématiques actuelles en bioinformatique

Additional file 10 of Changes in correlation between promoter methylation and gene expression in cancer

Hierarchical clustering of breast cancer patients based on the average methylation level of CGI + SS associated with cluster 3down. (PDF 379 kb

Epigenomic Alterations in Breast Carcinoma from Primary Tumor to Locoregional Recurrences

International audienceIntroduction: Epigenetic modifications such as aberrant DNA methylation has long been associated with tumorogenesis. Little is known, however, about how these modifications appear in cancer progression. Comparing the methylome of breast carcinomas and locoregional evolutions could shed light on this process. Methods: The methylome profiles of 48 primary breast carcinomas (PT) and their matched axillary metastases (PT/AM pairs, 20 cases), local recurrences (PT/LR pairs, 17 cases) or contralateral breast carcinomas (PT/CL pairs, 11 cases) were analyzed. Univariate and multivariate analyzes were performed to determine differentially methylated probes (DMPs), and a similarity score was defined to compare methylation profiles. Correlation with copy-number based score was calculated and metastatic-free survival was compared between methods. Results: 49 DMPs were found for the PT/AM set, but none for the others (FDR < 5%). Hierarchical clustering clustered 75% of the PT/AM, 47% of the PT/LR, and none of the PT/CL pairs together. A methylation-based score (MS) was defined as a clonality measure. The PT/AM set contained a high proportion of clonal pairs while PT/LR pairs were evenly split between high and low MS score, suggesting two groups: true recurrences (TR) and new primary tumors (NP). CL were classified as new tumors. MS score was significantly correlated with copy-number based scores. There was no significant difference between the metastatic-free survival of groups of patients based on different classifications. Conclusion: Epigenomic alterations are well suited to study clonality and track cancer progression. Methylation-based classification of TR and NP performed as well as clinical and copy-number based methods suggesting that these phenomenons are tightly linked

A deep learning model to predict RNA-Seq expression of tumours from whole slide images

International audienceDeep learning methods for digital pathology analysis are an effective way to address multiple clinical questions, from diagnosis to prediction of treatment outcomes. These methods have also been used to predict gene mutations from pathology images, but no comprehensive evaluation of their potential for extracting molecular features from histology slides has yet been performed. We show that HE2RNA, a model based on the integration of multiple data modes, can be trained to systematically predict RNA-Seq profiles from whole-slide images alone, without expert annotation. Through its interpretable design, HE2RNA provides virtual spatialization of gene expression, as validated by CD3- and CD20-staining on an independent dataset. The transcriptomic representation learned by HE2RNA can also be transferred on other datasets, even of small size, to increase prediction performance for specific molecular phenotypes. We illustrate the use of this approach in clinical diagnosis purposes such as the identification of tumors with microsatellite instability

Comparison of classification methods for clonality between pairs in the PT/LR cohort.

<p><b>Cor</b> (Correspondence): correspondence number with the Bollet/Servant cohort. <b>scores</b>: scores obtained with partial identity (PIS) or methylation (MS). <b>Time</b>: time elapsed between diagnosis of the PT and diagnosis of the recurrence. <b>Classification</b>: classification of the recurrence based on copy number (PIS), methylation (MS) or clinical features (clinical). <b>Divergence</b>: which method deviated from the others.</p

Histogram of the distribution of methylome-similarity score (MS) between unrelated PT/LR pairs.

<p>MS score for matched pairs is represented by circles. The vertical dashed line corresponds to the 95% quantile of the distribution of the MS scores for the unrelated pairs, used as a threshold to define clonal pairs ().</p