Information theoretical methods to deconvolute genetic regulatory networks applied to thyroid neoplasms

Abstract

Most common pathologies in humans are not caused by the mutation of a single gene, rather they are complex diseases that arise due to the dynamic interaction of many genes and environmental factors. This plethora of interacting genes generates a complexity landscape that masks the real effects associated with the disease. To construct dynamic maps of gene interactions (also called genetic regulatory networks) we need to understand the interplay between thousands of genes. Several issues arise in the analysis of experimental data related to gene function: on the one hand, the nature of measurement processes generates highly noisy signals; on the other hand, there are far more variables involved (number of genes and interactions among them) than experimental samples. Another source of complexity is the highly nonlinear character of the underlying biochemical dynamics. To overcome some of these limitations, we generated an optimized method based on the implementation of a Maximum Entropy Formalism (MaxEnt) to deconvolute a genetic regulatory network based on the most probable meta-distribution of gene–gene interactions. We tested the methodology using experimental data for Papillary Thyroid Cancer (PTC) and Thyroid Goiter tissue samples. The optimal MaxEnt regulatory network was obtained from a pool of 25,593,993 different probability distributions. The group of observed interactions was validated by several (mostly in silico) means and sources. For the associated Papillary Thyroid Cancer Gene Regulatory Network (PTC-GRN) the majority of the nodes (genes) have very few links (interactions) whereas a small number of nodes are highly connected. PTC-GRN is also characterized by high clustering coefficients and network heterogeneity. These properties have been recognized as characteristic of topological robustness, and they have been largely described in relation to biological networks. A number of biological validity outcomes are discussed with regard to both the inferred model and the PTC.