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.

Runs PANDA, an algorithm for discovering novel network structure by combining information from multiple complementary data sources.

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.

This is an easy-to-use package for downloading, organizing, and integrative analyzing RNA expression data in GDC with an emphasis on deciphering the lncRNA-mRNA related ceRNA regulatory network in cancer. Three databases of lncRNA-miRNA interactions including spongeScan, starBase, and miRcode, as well as three databases of mRNA-miRNA interactions including miRTarBase, starBase, and miRcode are incorporated into the package for ceRNAs network construction. limma, edgeR, and DESeq2 can be used to identify differentially expressed genes/miRNAs. Functional enrichment analyses including GO, KEGG, and DO can be performed based on the clusterProfiler and DO packages. Both univariate CoxPH and KM survival analyses of multiple genes can be implemented in the package. Besides some routine visualization functions such as volcano plot, bar plot, and KM plot, a few simply shiny apps are developed to facilitate visualization of results on a local webpage.

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.

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.