reconstructNetwork function

Reconstruct a Boolean network from time series of measurements

Reconstructs a Boolean network from a set of time series or from a transition table using the best-fit extension algorithm or the REVEAL algorithm.

reconstructNetwork(measurements, 
                   method = c("bestfit", "reveal"), 
                   maxK = 5, 
                   requiredDependencies = NULL, 
                   excludedDependencies = NULL, 
                   perturbations=NULL,
                   readableFunctions=FALSE, 
                   allSolutions=FALSE, 
                   returnPBN=FALSE)

Arguments

• measurements: This can either be an object of class TransitionTable as returned by getTransitionTable, or a set of time series of measurements. In this case, measurements must be a list of matrices, each corresponding to one time series. Each row of these matrices contains measurements for one gene on a time line, i. e. column i+1 contains the successor states of column i. The genes must be the same for all matrices in the list. Real-valued time series can be binarized using binarizeTimeSeries.
• method: This specifies the reconstruction algorithm to be used. If set to "bestfit", Laehdesmaeki's Best-Fit Extension algorithm is employed. This algorithm is an improvement of the algorithm by Akutsu et al. with a lower runtime complexity. It determines the functions with a minimal error for each gene. If set to "reveal", Liang's REVEAL algorithm is used. This algorithm searches for relevant input genes using the mutual information between the input genes and the output gene.
• maxK: The maximum number of input genes for one gene to be tested. Defaults to 5.
• requiredDependencies: An optional specification of known dependencies that must be included in reconstructed networks. This is a named list containing a vector of gene names (regulators) for each target.
• excludedDependencies: Analogous to requiredDependencies, this is an optional specification of dependencies that must not be included in reconstructed networks. This is a named list containing a vector of gene names (prohibited regulators) for each target.
• perturbations: If measurements contains data obtained from perturbation experiments (i.e. different targeted knock-outs and overexpressions), this optional parameter is a matrix with one column for each entry in measurements and a row for each gene. A matrix entry is 0 for a knock-out of the corresponding gene in the corresponding time series, 1 for overexpression, and NA or -1 for no perturbation. If measurements has an element perturbations and this argument is not specified, the element of measurements is taken.
• readableFunctions: If this is true, readable DNF representations of the truth tables of the functions are generated. These DNF are displayed when the network is printed. The DNF representations are not minimized and can thus be very long. If set to FALSE, the truth table result column is displayed.
• allSolutions: If this is true, all solutions with the minimum error and up to maxK inputs are returned. By default, allSolutions=FALSE, which means that only the solutions with both minimum error and minimum k are returned.
• returnPBN: Specifies the way unknown values in the truth tables of the transition functions ("don't care" values) are processed. If returnPBN=TRUE, all possible functions are enumerated recursively, and an object of class ProbabilisticBooleanNetwork is returned. This can consume a high amount of memory and computation time. If returnPBN=FALSE, the transition functions may contain "don't care" (*) values, and an object of class BooleanNetworkCollection is returned. returnPBN=TRUE corresponds to the behaviour prior to version 2.0. The default value is returnPBN=FALSE.

Details

Both algorithms iterate over all possible input combinations. While Best-Fit Extension is capable of returning functions that do not perfectly explain the measurements (for example, if there are inconsistent measurements or if maxK was specified too small), REVEAL only finds functions that explain all measurements. For more information, please refer to the cited publications.

Returns

If returnPBN=TRUE, the function returns an object of class ProbabilisticBooleanNetwork, with each alternative function of a gene having the same probability. The structure is described in detail in loadNetwork. In addition to the standard components, each alternative transition function has a component error which stores the error of the function on the input time series data. If returnPBN=FALSE, the function returns an object of class BooleanNetworkCollection that has essentially the same structure as ProbabilisticBooleanNetwork, but does not store probabilities and keeps "don't care" values in the functions. Due to the "don't care" (*) values, this collection cannot be simulated directly. However, a specific Boolean network of class BooleanNetwork can be extracted from both BooleanNetworkCollection and ProbabilisticBooleanNetwork structures using chooseNetwork.

References

H. Laehdesmaeki, I. Shmulevich and O. Yli-Harja (2003), On Learning Gene-Regulatory Networks Under the Boolean Network Model. Machine Learning 52:147--167.

T. Akutsu, S. Miyano and S. Kuhara (2000). Inferring qualitative relations in genetic networks and metabolic pathways. Bioinformatics 16(8):727--734.

S. Liang, S. Fuhrman and R. Somogyi (1998), REVEAL, a general reverse engineering algorithm for inference of genetic network architectures. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 3:18--29.

See Also

generateTimeSeries, binarizeTimeSeries, chooseNetwork

Examples

## Not run:

# load example data
data(yeastTimeSeries)

# perform binarization with k-means
bin <- binarizeTimeSeries(yeastTimeSeries)

# reconstruct networks from binarized measurements
net <- reconstructNetwork(bin$binarizedMeasurements, method="bestfit", maxK=3, returnPBN=TRUE)

# print reconstructed net
print(net)

# plot reconstructed net
plotNetworkWiring(net)
## End(Not run)