The DOI matches its Crossref record; 59 of the 61 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Biologically informed deep neural network for prostate cancer discovery
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Abstract The determination of molecular features that mediate clinically aggressive phenotypes in prostate cancer remains a major biological and clinical challenge 1,2 . Recent advances in interpretability of machine learning models as applied to biomedical problems may enable discovery and prediction in clinical cancer genomics 3–5 . Here we developed P-NET—a biologically informed deep learning model—to stratify patients with prostate cancer by treatment-resistance state and evaluate molecular drivers of treatment resistance for therapeutic targeting through complete model interpretability. We demonstrate that P-NET can predict cancer state using molecular data with a performance that is superior to other modelling approaches. Moreover, the biological interpretability within P-NET revealed established and novel molecularly altered candidates, such as MDM4 and FGFR1 , which were implicated in predicting advanced disease and validated in vitro. Broadly, biologically informed fully interpretable neural networks enable preclinical discovery and clinical prediction in prostate cancer and may have general applicability across cancer types.
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“P-NET applied the hierarchical pathway information to construct a sparse deep neural network for inferring the disease status-specific molecular alterations, which aids in disease diagnosis and drug design for prostate cancer [116].”
From Challenges in AI-driven Biomedical Multimodal Data Fusion and Analysis (2025) · cites this paper as [116]
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“While multiple deep learning methods have been developed to integrate biological pathway information with neural network architectures [116,166], these methods are still limited by the predefined pathway annotations.”
From Challenges in AI-driven Biomedical Multimodal Data Fusion and Analysis (2025) · cites this paper as [116]
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In the citing paper
“The common approach for biological model design is to construct a neural network architecture that is restrained by biological pathways, specifically connecting target gene nodes with pathway nodes, including models of P-NET [116], pmVAE [163], VEGA [164], and LDVAE [165].”
From Challenges in AI-driven Biomedical Multimodal Data Fusion and Analysis (2025) · cites this paper as [116]
In the citing paper
“P-NET (112) is a sparse deep learning model that processes molecular profiling data in a biologically informed, pathway-driven fashion to predict prostate disease states such as metastases, where the resulting prediction scores were shown to independently correlate with prognosis.”
From Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Current Landscape, Challenges, and Future Directions (2024) · cites this paper as [112]
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Scientific discovery in the age of artificial intelligence.
Wang, H., Fu, T., Du, Y., Gao, W., Huang, K., Liu, Z., Chandak, P., Liu, S., Van Katwyk, P., Deac, A., et al. (2023) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06221-2 · Cited by 1,823
Obtaining genetics insights from deep learning via explainable artificial intelligence
Novakovsky, G., Dexter, N., Libbrecht, M. W., Wasserman, W. W., & Mostafavi, S. (2022) · Nature Reviews Genetics · doi:10.1038/s41576-022-00532-2 · Cited by 415
Artificial intelligence-powered electronic skin
Xu, C., Solomon, S. A., & Gao, W. (2023) · Nature Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1038/s42256-023-00760-z · Cited by 259
Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Current Landscape, Challenges, and Future Directions
Lotter, W., Hassett, M. J., Schultz, N., Kehl, K. L., Van Allen, E. M., & Cerami, E. (2024) · Cancer Discovery · doi:10.1158/2159-8290.cd-23-1199 · Cited by 196
Advancing Computational Toxicology by Interpretable Machine Learning
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Metadata
- Authors
- Elmarakeby, H. A., Hwang, J., Arafeh, R., Crowdis, J., Gang, S., Liu, D., AlDubayan, S. H., Salari, K., Kregel, S., Richter, C., Arnoff, T. E., Park, J., Hahn, W. C., & Van Allen, E. M.
- Affiliations
- Broad Institute (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (US)
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2021-09-22
- Volume
- 598
- Issue
- 7880
- Pages
- 348-352
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC8514339
- OpenAlex
- W3199772305
- Cited by
- 456
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 99 · 2025: 105 · 2024: 111 · 2023: 88 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 5
- FWCI
- 41.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Defense (U01 CA233100, PC200150)
- Movember Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- National Cancer Institute (U01CA176058, U01CA233100)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Prostate Cancer Treatment and Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Radiomics and Machine Learning in Medical Imaging
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Breast Cancer Treatment Studies
- Keywords
- prostate cancer, treatment resistance, interpretable neural networks, MDM4, FGFR1, cancer genomics, patient stratification, therapeutic targeting
- MeSH terms
- Deep Learning, Humans, Male, Prostatic Neoplasms, Proto-Oncogene Proteins, Receptors, Androgen, Reproducibility of Results, Tumor Suppressor Protein p53, Cell Cycle Proteins, Drug Resistance, Neoplasm, Receptor, Fibroblast Growth Factor, Type 1
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