Cited by 119Gene Regulatory Network AnalysisGenomics and Chromatin DynamicsSingle-cell and spatial transcriptomics

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Inferring gene regulatory networks from single-cell multiome data using atlas-scale external data

Open access
Yuan, Qiuyue, Duren, Zhana·2025·Nature Biotechnology

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Existing methods for gene regulatory network (GRN) inference rely on gene expression data alone or on lower resolution bulk data. Despite the recent integration of chromatin accessibility and RNA sequencing data, learning complex mechanisms from limited independent data points still presents a daunting challenge. Here we present LINGER (Lifelong neural network for gene regulation), a machine-learning method to infer GRNs from single-cell paired gene expression and chromatin accessibility data. LINGER incorporates atlas-scale external bulk data across diverse cellular contexts and prior knowledge of transcription factor motifs as a manifold regularization. LINGER achieves a fourfold to sevenfold relative increase in accuracy over existing methods and reveals a complex regulatory landscape of genome-wide association studies, enabling enhanced interpretation of disease-associated variants and genes. Following the GRN inference from reference single-cell multiome data, LINGER enables the estimation of transcription factor activity solely from bulk or single-cell gene expression data, leveraging the abundance of available gene expression data to identify driver regulators from case-control studies.

Overview

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TL;DR

LINGER infers gene regulatory networks from paired single-cell gene expression and chromatin accessibility data by pretraining on atlas-scale bulk ENCODE data and incorporating TF–motif prior knowledge as manifold regularization. It reports a fourfold to sevenfold relative increase in accuracy over existing methods and enables GWAS interpretation and TF activity estimation from expression data alone.

Key findings

  • LINGER improved population-level GRN inference over scNN, BulkNN and PCC across 20 blood ChIP–seq ground-truth datasets, with significantly higher AUC and AUPR ratio; for trans-regulatory potential, other methods averaged AUPR ratios of 1.17–1.29, 0.17–0.29 units above random, whereas LINGER achieved 1.25 units above random, described as a fourfold to sevenfold relative increase.
  • For cell type-specific TF–RE binding in naive CD4 T cells, LINGER reached AUC 0.92 and AUPR ratio 5.17 for ETS1, versus PCC (AUC 0.78; AUPR ratio 2.71) and motif binding affinity (AUC 0.70; AUPR ratio 1.92); for cis-regulatory potential in naive CD4 T cells, LINGER achieved AUC 0.66–0.70 and AUPR ratio 1.81–2.16 across distance groups, while other methods were close to random.
  • In IBD GWAS analysis using risk loci from about 330,000 individuals, classical monocytes showed significantly higher trait regulation scores for top-expressed TFs than random TFs (P = 8.9 × 10−29); among the top 200 STAT1 target genes in classical monocytes, 67 overlapped GWAS genes (P < 0.01), and the SLC24A4 cis-regulatory network was dense near risk SNP rs11626366 (P = 7.4 × 10−3).
  • LINGER estimated TF activity from expression alone: FOXN1 activity was lower in AML patients than healthy donors (P = 0.035) despite no significant expression difference, and high FOXN1 activity was associated with higher survival; upon TCR stimulation, FOXK2 and NR4A1 regulon activity increased at 8 h (P = 0.0057 and P = 0.00081, respectively) without significant expression changes.

Methods

  • LINGER uses a neural network to predict target-gene expression from TF expression and regulatory-element accessibility, pretraining on 201 ENCODE bulk samples across diverse cellular contexts, then refining on single-cell multiome data with elastic weight consolidation and manifold regularization based on TF–RE motif matching; Shapley values infer TF–TG and RE–TG regulatory strengths.
  • Data included 10x Genomics PBMC multiome data (11,909 cells; after filtering, 9,543 cells; metacells used for training), an in silico mixture of H1, BJ, GM12878 and K562 from SNARE-seq, and ground truth from ChIP–seq, eQTLGen/GTEx, promoter-capture Hi-C, single-cell eQTL, KnockTF perturbation data and GWAS summary statistics.
  • Performance was assessed mainly by AUC, AUPR ratio, F1 score and paired t-tests, with comparisons to scNN, BulkNN, PCC, motif binding affinity, GENIE3, PIDC, SCENIC+ and CellOracle.

Limitations

  • The paper states that TF self-regulation is not considered because it is challenging to model without additional data.
  • The paper states that lifelong learning involves a tradeoff between retaining bulk prior knowledge and fitting new single-cell data, and that the flexibility of variation in prior knowledge is not constrained when fitting new data.
  • Evident from the text: benchmarking is largely limited to blood/PBMC and the H1 cell line, with ground truth restricted to available ChIP–seq, eQTL, Hi-C and perturbation datasets; generalization to other tissues or cell types is not established here.

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Crossref · 10.1038/s41587-024-02182-7

Cites

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Figures

Fig. 1 Schematic overview of LINGER. a, Schematic illustration of LINGER: a model predicting gene expression by TF expression and chromatin accessibility using a neural network model. LINGER pre-trains on the atlas-scale external bulk data and retains parameters by lifelong learning. The population-level GRN is generated from the neural network using the Shapley value. b, Strategy for constructing cell type-specific and cell-level GRNs. Cell type-specific and cell-level GRNs are inferred by an identical strategy, which combines consistent information across all cells, including regulatory strength, motif binding affinity and RE–TG distance, with context-specific information on gene expression and chromatin accessibility. c, Downstream analyses enabled by LINGER-inferred GRNs, including identifying complex regulatory landscape of GWAS traits and driver regulator identification.
Fig. 1 Schematic overview of LINGER. a, Schematic illustration of LINGER: a model predicting gene expression by TF expression and chromatin accessibility using a neural network model. LINGER pre-trains on the atlas-scale external bulk data and retains parameters by lifelong learning. The population-level GRN is generated from the neural network using the Shapley value. b, Strategy for constructing cell type-specific and cell-level GRNs. Cell type-specific and cell-level GRNs are inferred by an identical strategy, which combines consistent information across all cells, including regulatory strength, motif binding affinity and RE–TG distance, with context-specific information on gene expression and chromatin accessibility. c, Downstream analyses enabled by LINGER-inferred GRNs, including identifying complex regulatory landscape of GWAS traits and driver regulator identification.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 2 LINGER improves the cellular population GRN inference. a, Correlation between predicted and real gene expression, showing higher accuracy for scNN than elastic net. The x axis represents the PCC of genes predicted by elastic net and real gene expression across cells, while the y axis gives the PCC for scNN. The points represent genes and the color of the points represents the density. The color of distribution in b–e indicates the different methods: orange, LINGER; gray, elastic net; dark green, scNN; blue, BulkNN; light blue, PCC. Null hypothesis testing results in a t-statistic with an effect size of 53.46, df = 15,659, −log10P = 572.09 and 95% confidence interval of [0.058, 0.063] from a two-sided paired t-test. b, Boxplot of the performance metric AUC for the predicted trans-regulatory strength across all ground truth data. The ground truth data for b and c are putative targets of TFs from 20 ChIP–seq data points from blood cells (n = 20 independent samples). PCC denotes Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the chromatin accessibility of RE and the expression of TG. Note that all boxplots in this study present minima and maxima, the smallest and largest value that is not considered an outlier; center, median; bounds of box, 25th (Q1) to 75th (Q3) percentile; whiskers, 1.5 times the (Q3–Q1). In this study, we use the following convention for symbols indicating statistical significance: ns, P > 0.05; *P ≤ 0.05; **P ≤ 0.01; ***P ≤ 0.001; ****P ≤ 0.0001. We hide the ns symbol when displaying significance levels. In detail, P = 8.32 × 10−6 for LINGER and scNN, P = 8.57 × 10−5 for LINGER and BulkNN and P = 1.24 × 10−3 for LINGER and PCC. c, Boxplot of the performance metric AUPR ratio for the predicted trans-regulatory strength. P values in b and c are from one-sided paired t-tests. In detail, P = 3.49 × 10−3 for LINGER and scNN, P = 2.13 × 10−4 for LINGER and BulkNN and P = 4.53 × 10−4 for LINGER and PCC. d, AUC for cis-regulatory strength inferred by LINGER. The ground truth data for d and e are the variant-gene links from eQTLGen. We divide RE–TG pairs into different groups based on the distance of the RE from the TSS of TG. e, AUPR ratio for cis-regulatory strength. f, Classification of the trans-dominant or cis-dominant gene. TFs contribute more to predicting the expression of trans-dominant genes, while REs contribute more to cis-dominant genes. g, Probability of trans-dominant and cis-dominant being loss-of-function (LoF)-intolerant genes. Points show estimated success probability from binomial distribution, at 0.26 and 0.09 for trans-dominant and cis-dominant, respectively. n = 317 and n = 693 independent sample size for trans-dominant and cis-dominant, respectively. Data are presented as means ± 1.96 × s.d.
Fig. 2 LINGER improves the cellular population GRN inference. a, Correlation between predicted and real gene expression, showing higher accuracy for scNN than elastic net. The x axis represents the PCC of genes predicted by elastic net and real gene expression across cells, while the y axis gives the PCC for scNN. The points represent genes and the color of the points represents the density. The color of distribution in b–e indicates the different methods: orange, LINGER; gray, elastic net; dark green, scNN; blue, BulkNN; light blue, PCC. Null hypothesis testing results in a t-statistic with an effect size of 53.46, df = 15,659, −log10P = 572.09 and 95% confidence interval of [0.058, 0.063] from a two-sided paired t-test. b, Boxplot of the performance metric AUC for the predicted trans-regulatory strength across all ground truth data. The ground truth data for b and c are putative targets of TFs from 20 ChIP–seq data points from blood cells (n = 20 independent samples). PCC denotes Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the chromatin accessibility of RE and the expression of TG. Note that all boxplots in this study present minima and maxima, the smallest and largest value that is not considered an outlier; center, median; bounds of box, 25th (Q1) to 75th (Q3) percentile; whiskers, 1.5 times the (Q3–Q1). In this study, we use the following convention for symbols indicating statistical significance: ns, P > 0.05; *P ≤ 0.05; **P ≤ 0.01; ***P ≤ 0.001; ****P ≤ 0.0001. We hide the ns symbol when displaying significance levels. In detail, P = 8.32 × 10−6 for LINGER and scNN, P = 8.57 × 10−5 for LINGER and BulkNN and P = 1.24 × 10−3 for LINGER and PCC. c, Boxplot of the performance metric AUPR ratio for the predicted trans-regulatory strength. P values in b and c are from one-sided paired t-tests. In detail, P = 3.49 × 10−3 for LINGER and scNN, P = 2.13 × 10−4 for LINGER and BulkNN and P = 4.53 × 10−4 for LINGER and PCC. d, AUC for cis-regulatory strength inferred by LINGER. The ground truth data for d and e are the variant-gene links from eQTLGen. We divide RE–TG pairs into different groups based on the distance of the RE from the TSS of TG. e, AUPR ratio for cis-regulatory strength. f, Classification of the trans-dominant or cis-dominant gene. TFs contribute more to predicting the expression of trans-dominant genes, while REs contribute more to cis-dominant genes. g, Probability of trans-dominant and cis-dominant being loss-of-function (LoF)-intolerant genes. Points show estimated success probability from binomial distribution, at 0.26 and 0.09 for trans-dominant and cis-dominant, respectively. n = 317 and n = 693 independent sample size for trans-dominant and cis-dominant, respectively. Data are presented as means ± 1.96 × s.d.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 3 Systematic benchmarking of cell type-specific TF–RE binding potential and cis-regulatory potential performance. a,e, Receiver operating characteristic curve and precision–recall curve of binding potential for ETS1 in naive CD4 T cells. The ground truth for a and e is the ChIP–seq data of ETS1 in naive CD4+ T cells. The color in a–e represents the different methods used to predict TF–RE regulation. Orange, LINGER; green, PCC between the expression of TF and the chromatin accessibility of RE; blue, motif binding affinity of TF to RE. b,c, Violin plot of the AUC and AUPR ratio values of binding potential across diverse TFs and cell types. The ground truth is the ChIP–seq data for 20 TFs from different cell types in blood. The original data is in Supplementary Table 6. The null hypothesis testing in b, comparing the AUC of LINGER with PCC and binding, results in t-statistics (one-sided paired t-test) with effect size, 8.99; df, 19; P = 1.42 × 10−8, 95% confidence intervals, [0.17, Inf] and effect size, 18.25; df, 19; P = 8.34 × 10−14; 95% confidence intervals, [0.17, Inf], respectively. The null hypothesis testing in c, comparing the AUPR ratio of LINGER with PCC and binding, results in t-statistics (one-sided paired t-test) with effect size, 4.65; df, 19; P = 8.72 × 10−5; 95% confidence intervals, [1.31, Inf] and effect size, 5.44, df, 19; P = 1.49 × 10−5; 95% confidence intervals, [1.51, Inf], respectively. d, The performance metrics F1 score of binding potential. Each point represents ground truth data (n = 20 independent samples). The P values for d, h and k are based on one-sided paired t-tests. f,g, AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential in naive CD4+ cells. The ground truth for f–h is promoter-capture Hi-C data. RE–TG pairs are divided into six distance groups ranging from 0–5 kb to 100–200 kb. PCC is calculated between the expression of TG and the chromatin accessibility of RE. Distance denotes the decay function of the distance to the TSS. Random denotes the uniform distribution from 0 to 1. h, F1 score of cis-regulatory in naive CD4+ cells for LINGER and SCENIC+ (n = 9 independent samples). i,j, AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential. The ground truth is eQTL data from six immune cell types. k, F1 score of cis-regulatory potential in naive B cells. The ground truth is eQTL data from naive B cells (n = 9 independent samples). This figure corresponds to the PBMC data.
Fig. 3 Systematic benchmarking of cell type-specific TF–RE binding potential and cis-regulatory potential performance. a,e, Receiver operating characteristic curve and precision–recall curve of binding potential for ETS1 in naive CD4 T cells. The ground truth for a and e is the ChIP–seq data of ETS1 in naive CD4+ T cells. The color in a–e represents the different methods used to predict TF–RE regulation. Orange, LINGER; green, PCC between the expression of TF and the chromatin accessibility of RE; blue, motif binding affinity of TF to RE. b,c, Violin plot of the AUC and AUPR ratio values of binding potential across diverse TFs and cell types. The ground truth is the ChIP–seq data for 20 TFs from different cell types in blood. The original data is in Supplementary Table 6. The null hypothesis testing in b, comparing the AUC of LINGER with PCC and binding, results in t-statistics (one-sided paired t-test) with effect size, 8.99; df, 19; P = 1.42 × 10−8, 95% confidence intervals, [0.17, Inf] and effect size, 18.25; df, 19; P = 8.34 × 10−14; 95% confidence intervals, [0.17, Inf], respectively. The null hypothesis testing in c, comparing the AUPR ratio of LINGER with PCC and binding, results in t-statistics (one-sided paired t-test) with effect size, 4.65; df, 19; P = 8.72 × 10−5; 95% confidence intervals, [1.31, Inf] and effect size, 5.44, df, 19; P = 1.49 × 10−5; 95% confidence intervals, [1.51, Inf], respectively. d, The performance metrics F1 score of binding potential. Each point represents ground truth data (n = 20 independent samples). The P values for d, h and k are based on one-sided paired t-tests. f,g, AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential in naive CD4+ cells. The ground truth for f–h is promoter-capture Hi-C data. RE–TG pairs are divided into six distance groups ranging from 0–5 kb to 100–200 kb. PCC is calculated between the expression of TG and the chromatin accessibility of RE. Distance denotes the decay function of the distance to the TSS. Random denotes the uniform distribution from 0 to 1. h, F1 score of cis-regulatory in naive CD4+ cells for LINGER and SCENIC+ (n = 9 independent samples). i,j, AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential. The ground truth is eQTL data from six immune cell types. k, F1 score of cis-regulatory potential in naive B cells. The ground truth is eQTL data from naive B cells (n = 9 independent samples). This figure corresponds to the PBMC data.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 4 Systematic benchmarking of cell type-specific trans-regulatory potential performance. a,b, Receiver operating characteristic curve and precision–recall curve of trans-regulatory potential inference of STAT1 in classical monocytes. The ground truth data in a–d are putative targets of TFs from ChIP–seq data for the corresponding cell types in PBMCs. c,d, Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs and cell types. The original data is in Supplementary Table 7. The sample size for the one-sided paired t-test is 20. For c, −log10(P values) are 11.12, 7.72, 11,13 and 10.17 for GENIE3, PCC, PIDC and SCENIC+, respectively. For d, −log10(P values) are 9.59, 8.02, 9.22 and 8.47, respectively. e, Uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) of PBMCs including 14 cell types. NK cells, natural killer cells; MAIT, mucosal-associated invariant T cells; DCs; dendritic cells. f, UMAP of RUNX1 expression across PBMCs. g, UMAP of cell level trans-regulatory potential for RUNX1(TF)–SPI1(TG) across PBMCs. h, UMAP of cell level trans-regulatory potential for RUNX1(TF)–PRKCQ(TG) across PBMCs. i, Violin plot of cell level trans-regulatory potential from different cell types. The sample size for each boxplot is the number of cells of each cell type, ranging from 98 to 1,848. This figure corresponds to the PBMCs.
Fig. 4 Systematic benchmarking of cell type-specific trans-regulatory potential performance. a,b, Receiver operating characteristic curve and precision–recall curve of trans-regulatory potential inference of STAT1 in classical monocytes. The ground truth data in a–d are putative targets of TFs from ChIP–seq data for the corresponding cell types in PBMCs. c,d, Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs and cell types. The original data is in Supplementary Table 7. The sample size for the one-sided paired t-test is 20. For c, −log10(P values) are 11.12, 7.72, 11,13 and 10.17 for GENIE3, PCC, PIDC and SCENIC+, respectively. For d, −log10(P values) are 9.59, 8.02, 9.22 and 8.47, respectively. e, Uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) of PBMCs including 14 cell types. NK cells, natural killer cells; MAIT, mucosal-associated invariant T cells; DCs; dendritic cells. f, UMAP of RUNX1 expression across PBMCs. g, UMAP of cell level trans-regulatory potential for RUNX1(TF)–SPI1(TG) across PBMCs. h, UMAP of cell level trans-regulatory potential for RUNX1(TF)–PRKCQ(TG) across PBMCs. i, Violin plot of cell level trans-regulatory potential from different cell types. The sample size for each boxplot is the number of cells of each cell type, ranging from 98 to 1,848. This figure corresponds to the PBMCs.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 5 Elucidating GWAS traits through LINGER-inferred regulatory landscape. a, Distribution of the number of TGs for top expression TFs and randomly selected TFs in classical monocytes (top) and CD56dim NK cells (bottom). The 100 top-expression TFs and 100 randomly selected TFs are used to generate the distribution. b, Enrichment of IBD GWAS to cell types in PBMCs. The color of the bubbles corresponds to the odds ratio of the number of TGs between top expression and randomly selected TFs. The x axis is the −log10(P value) from the one-sided unpaired t-test for the number of TGs between top expression and randomly selected TFs. c, Key IBD-associated regulators in classical monocytes. The x axis is the z-score of the expression of TFs across all TFs. The y axis is the regulation score of TFs. The TFs in red are the top-ranked TFs according to the summation of the expression level and regulation score. d, Enrichment of GWAS IBD genes among STAT1 targets in classical monocytes. The violin plot is generated by randomly choosing 1,000 TFs; the number of overlapping genes for STAT1 is marked by a star. The different violin plots correspond to taking the top 200–5,000 genes as the TG for each TF, respectively. e, Enrichment of DEGs between inflamed biopsies and non-inflamed biopsies among STAT1 targets in classical monocytes. The details are the same as in d. f, Sub-network of IBD-relevant TFs from classical monocytes trans-regulatory network. The size of the TF or TG nodes corresponds to their degree in the network. The color of TF denotes the trait-relevant score, and the color of TG denotes the −log10(P value) of GWAS SNP assigned to the gene. g, Cis-regulatory network at locus around SLC24A4. The interaction denotes significant RE–TG links, and we use the location of the promoter to represent the gene.
Fig. 5 Elucidating GWAS traits through LINGER-inferred regulatory landscape. a, Distribution of the number of TGs for top expression TFs and randomly selected TFs in classical monocytes (top) and CD56dim NK cells (bottom). The 100 top-expression TFs and 100 randomly selected TFs are used to generate the distribution. b, Enrichment of IBD GWAS to cell types in PBMCs. The color of the bubbles corresponds to the odds ratio of the number of TGs between top expression and randomly selected TFs. The x axis is the −log10(P value) from the one-sided unpaired t-test for the number of TGs between top expression and randomly selected TFs. c, Key IBD-associated regulators in classical monocytes. The x axis is the z-score of the expression of TFs across all TFs. The y axis is the regulation score of TFs. The TFs in red are the top-ranked TFs according to the summation of the expression level and regulation score. d, Enrichment of GWAS IBD genes among STAT1 targets in classical monocytes. The violin plot is generated by randomly choosing 1,000 TFs; the number of overlapping genes for STAT1 is marked by a star. The different violin plots correspond to taking the top 200–5,000 genes as the TG for each TF, respectively. e, Enrichment of DEGs between inflamed biopsies and non-inflamed biopsies among STAT1 targets in classical monocytes. The details are the same as in d. f, Sub-network of IBD-relevant TFs from classical monocytes trans-regulatory network. The size of the TF or TG nodes corresponds to their degree in the network. The color of TF denotes the trait-relevant score, and the color of TG denotes the −log10(P value) of GWAS SNP assigned to the gene. g, Cis-regulatory network at locus around SLC24A4. The interaction denotes significant RE–TG links, and we use the location of the promoter to represent the gene.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 6 Driver regulator identification. a, Violin plot of FOXN1 expression across healthy donors (n = 38 independent samples) and patients with AML (n = 26 independent samples), respectively. There is no significant difference in the mean expression (two-sided unpaired t-test). b, Violin plot of regulon activity of FOXN1 across healthy donors (n = 38 independent samples) and patients with AML (n = 26 independent samples), respectively (two-sided unpaired t-test, P = 0.035). c, AML survival by the regulon activity of FOXN1 (P value is from a two-sided log-rank test). d, The heatmap of regulon activity and gene expression in response to TCR stimulation at 0 h and 8 h. Two-sided unpaired t-test for the difference in regulon activity, P = 0.0057 and P = 0.00081 for FOXK1 and NR4A1, respectively; the P value for gene expression is >0.05. Heatmap is scaled by row. e, Heatmap of whole protein (wProtein) and phosphoproteomics (pProtein) expression in response to TCR stimulation at 0 h, 2 h, 8 h and 16 h. There are two biological replicates, represented by a and b. The wProtein and pProtein expression of FOXK1 and NR4A1 is higher at 8 h than at 0 h. The heatmap is scaled by row.
Fig. 6 Driver regulator identification. a, Violin plot of FOXN1 expression across healthy donors (n = 38 independent samples) and patients with AML (n = 26 independent samples), respectively. There is no significant difference in the mean expression (two-sided unpaired t-test). b, Violin plot of regulon activity of FOXN1 across healthy donors (n = 38 independent samples) and patients with AML (n = 26 independent samples), respectively (two-sided unpaired t-test, P = 0.035). c, AML survival by the regulon activity of FOXN1 (P value is from a two-sided log-rank test). d, The heatmap of regulon activity and gene expression in response to TCR stimulation at 0 h and 8 h. Two-sided unpaired t-test for the difference in regulon activity, P = 0.0057 and P = 0.00081 for FOXK1 and NR4A1, respectively; the P value for gene expression is >0.05. Heatmap is scaled by row. e, Heatmap of whole protein (wProtein) and phosphoproteomics (pProtein) expression in response to TCR stimulation at 0 h, 2 h, 8 h and 16 h. There are two biological replicates, represented by a and b. The wProtein and pProtein expression of FOXK1 and NR4A1 is higher at 8 h than at 0 h. The heatmap is scaled by row.CC BY · PubMed Central
Extended Data Fig. 1 Assessing the performance of cis-regulatory strength inferred by LINGER taking eQTL data for GTEx as ground truth. A. AUC for cis-regulatory strength inferred by LINGER. The ground truth for A and B is the variant-gene links from GTEx. We divide RE-TG pairs into different groups based on the distance of RE and the TSS of TG. B. AUPR ratio for cis-regulatory strength.
Extended Data Fig. 1 Assessing the performance of cis-regulatory strength inferred by LINGER taking eQTL data for GTEx as ground truth. A. AUC for cis-regulatory strength inferred by LINGER. The ground truth for A and B is the variant-gene links from GTEx. We divide RE-TG pairs into different groups based on the distance of RE and the TSS of TG. B. AUPR ratio for cis-regulatory strength.CC BY · PubMed Central
Extended Data Fig. 2 Parameter sensitivity. A. Sensitivity of neural network structure and active function. B. Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs and cell types (n=20 independent sample). One-sided paired t-test result in -log10P-value 10.73, 7.11, 10.85, and 9.61 compared with GENIE3, PCC, PIDC, and SCENIC+ in terms of AUC, respectively. For AUPR ratio, -log10P-values are 8.94, 7.03, 8.48, and 7.57, respectively. C, D. Bar plot of AUC and AUPR ratio difference of different motif matching weight. The upper and lower figures refer to the difference in weight 0.01 to 0 and 0.01 to 10. The x-axis of C, D, and H refers to the ground truth data named by the TF name and Cistrome database ID. E. Scatter plot of AUC of original metacells and SEACells metacells as input. Each point refers to each ChIP-seq ground truth data. F, G. Box plot of AUPR ratio and AUC of defining regulatory element within different TSS distances from 200 Kb to 2 Mb (n = 20 independent sample). Two-sided paired t-test result in p-value 0.055(2 Mb and 1 Mb), 0.088(2 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.028(2 Mb and 200 Kb), 0.025(1 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.0056(1 Mb and 200 Kb), and 0.70(500 Kb and 200 Kb) in terms of AUC. For AUPR ratio, p-values are 0.0017(2 Mb and 1 Mb), 0.093(2 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.12(2 Mb and 200 Kb), 0.00048(1 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.00075(1 Mb and 200 Kb), and 0.64(500 Kb and 200 Kb). H. Bar plot of AUC and AUPR ratio difference of two rounds pre-train and single round pre-train.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Parameter sensitivity. A. Sensitivity of neural network structure and active function. B. Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs and cell types (n=20 independent sample). One-sided paired t-test result in -log10P-value 10.73, 7.11, 10.85, and 9.61 compared with GENIE3, PCC, PIDC, and SCENIC+ in terms of AUC, respectively. For AUPR ratio, -log10P-values are 8.94, 7.03, 8.48, and 7.57, respectively. C, D. Bar plot of AUC and AUPR ratio difference of different motif matching weight. The upper and lower figures refer to the difference in weight 0.01 to 0 and 0.01 to 10. The x-axis of C, D, and H refers to the ground truth data named by the TF name and Cistrome database ID. E. Scatter plot of AUC of original metacells and SEACells metacells as input. Each point refers to each ChIP-seq ground truth data. F, G. Box plot of AUPR ratio and AUC of defining regulatory element within different TSS distances from 200 Kb to 2 Mb (n = 20 independent sample). Two-sided paired t-test result in p-value 0.055(2 Mb and 1 Mb), 0.088(2 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.028(2 Mb and 200 Kb), 0.025(1 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.0056(1 Mb and 200 Kb), and 0.70(500 Kb and 200 Kb) in terms of AUC. For AUPR ratio, p-values are 0.0017(2 Mb and 1 Mb), 0.093(2 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.12(2 Mb and 200 Kb), 0.00048(1 Mb and 500 Kb), 0.00075(1 Mb and 200 Kb), and 0.64(500 Kb and 200 Kb). H. Bar plot of AUC and AUPR ratio difference of two rounds pre-train and single round pre-train.CC BY · PubMed Central
Extended Data Fig. 3 Systematic benchmarking of cell type-specific GRN. A, B. ROC curve and PR curve of binding potential for MYC in H1 cell line. The ground truth for A to D is the ChIP-seq data of MYC in the H1 cell line. The color in A to D represents the different competitors to predict TF-RE regulation. Orange represents LINGER, green represents PCC between the expression of TF and the chromatin accessibility of RE, and blue represents motif binding affinity of TF to RE. C, D. Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of binding potential across diverse TFs. The ground truth is ChIP-seq data for 33 TFs (n=33 independent sample). One-sided paired t-test is performed to test whether there is significant difference. In C, -log10P-values are 11.36 and 12.27 compared with PCC and TFBS, respectively. In D, -log P-values are 6.21 and 5.18, respectively. E, F. AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential in naïve CD8 T cells. The ground truth for E to J is promoter capture HiC data. RE-TG pairs are divided into six distance groups ranging from 0-5k to 100-200 kb. PCC is calculated between the expression of TG and the chromatin accessibility of RE. Distance denotes the decay function of the distance to the TSS. Random denotes the uniform distribution. G, H. AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential in naïve B cells. I, J. F1 score of cis-regulatory in naïve CD8 T cells and naïve B cells for LINGER and SCENIC+. P-values are from one-sided paired t-test with n=9 independent sample. K to O, F1 score of cis-regulatory potential in classical monocytes, effector CD8 T cells, memory B cells, non-classical monocytes, and plasmacytoid DC cells for LINGER and SCENIC+. The ground truth is eQTL data (n=9 independent sample). P-values are from one-sided paired t-test. P, Q. ROC curve and PR curve of trans-regulatory potential inference of CTCF in H1 cell line. The ground truth of P to R is putative targets of TFs from ChIP-seq data in the H1 cell line. R Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs in H1 cell line (n=33 independent sample). One-sided unpaired t-test result in -log10P-value 15.89, 15.64, 16.36, and 15.54 compared with GENIE3, PCC, PIDC, and SCENIC+ in terms of AUC, respectively. For AUPR ratio, -log10P-values are 11.01, 10.64, 11.20, and 11.17, respectively.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Systematic benchmarking of cell type-specific GRN. A, B. ROC curve and PR curve of binding potential for MYC in H1 cell line. The ground truth for A to D is the ChIP-seq data of MYC in the H1 cell line. The color in A to D represents the different competitors to predict TF-RE regulation. Orange represents LINGER, green represents PCC between the expression of TF and the chromatin accessibility of RE, and blue represents motif binding affinity of TF to RE. C, D. Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of binding potential across diverse TFs. The ground truth is ChIP-seq data for 33 TFs (n=33 independent sample). One-sided paired t-test is performed to test whether there is significant difference. In C, -log10P-values are 11.36 and 12.27 compared with PCC and TFBS, respectively. In D, -log P-values are 6.21 and 5.18, respectively. E, F. AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential in naïve CD8 T cells. The ground truth for E to J is promoter capture HiC data. RE-TG pairs are divided into six distance groups ranging from 0-5k to 100-200 kb. PCC is calculated between the expression of TG and the chromatin accessibility of RE. Distance denotes the decay function of the distance to the TSS. Random denotes the uniform distribution. G, H. AUC and AUPR ratio of cis-regulatory potential in naïve B cells. I, J. F1 score of cis-regulatory in naïve CD8 T cells and naïve B cells for LINGER and SCENIC+. P-values are from one-sided paired t-test with n=9 independent sample. K to O, F1 score of cis-regulatory potential in classical monocytes, effector CD8 T cells, memory B cells, non-classical monocytes, and plasmacytoid DC cells for LINGER and SCENIC+. The ground truth is eQTL data (n=9 independent sample). P-values are from one-sided paired t-test. P, Q. ROC curve and PR curve of trans-regulatory potential inference of CTCF in H1 cell line. The ground truth of P to R is putative targets of TFs from ChIP-seq data in the H1 cell line. R Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs in H1 cell line (n=33 independent sample). One-sided unpaired t-test result in -log10P-value 15.89, 15.64, 16.36, and 15.54 compared with GENIE3, PCC, PIDC, and SCENIC+ in terms of AUC, respectively. For AUPR ratio, -log10P-values are 11.01, 10.64, 11.20, and 11.17, respectively.CC BY · PubMed Central
Extended Data Fig. 4 In silico perturbation. A, B. Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs and cell types for PBMCs. The ground truth of A to D is 8 experimental perturbation data from KnockTF database (n=8 independent sample). One-sided paired t-test are performed to test the difference. For AUC, -log10P-values are 3.74, 3.43, 3.64, and 3.86 compared with GENIE3, PCC, PIDC, and SCENIC+, respectively. For AUPR ratio, -log10P-values are 3.36, 2.14, 1.69 and 1.80, respectively. C, D. Box plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of in silico perturbation predicted target gene. P-values are from one-sided paired t-test with 8 independent samples. E. Differentiation behavior prediction on BMMC data after knocking out GATA1.
Extended Data Fig. 4 In silico perturbation. A, B. Violin plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of trans-regulatory potential performance across diverse TFs and cell types for PBMCs. The ground truth of A to D is 8 experimental perturbation data from KnockTF database (n=8 independent sample). One-sided paired t-test are performed to test the difference. For AUC, -log10P-values are 3.74, 3.43, 3.64, and 3.86 compared with GENIE3, PCC, PIDC, and SCENIC+, respectively. For AUPR ratio, -log10P-values are 3.36, 2.14, 1.69 and 1.80, respectively. C, D. Box plot of AUC and AUPR ratio values of in silico perturbation predicted target gene. P-values are from one-sided paired t-test with 8 independent samples. E. Differentiation behavior prediction on BMMC data after knocking out GATA1.CC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

51 Own result · 18 Own interpretation · 10 No basis given · 9 Supported · 7 Partly supported · 4 No full text of the sources · 3 Sources not found · 2 Supported so far · 2 Own method · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 57 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 24
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 30
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 2
49 of 49
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Most single-cell data points are not independent.

    “Although single-cell data offers a large number of cells, most of them are not independent.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Incorporating prior knowledge such as motif matching into non-linear models is challenging.

    “Second, incorporating prior knowledge such as motif matching into non-linear models is challenging.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Learning a complex mechanism like GRN from limited data points remains a challenge.

    “First, learning such a complex mechanism from limited data points remains a challenge.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Shapley value estimates the contribution of each feature for each gene.

    “we infer the regulatory strength of TF–TG and RE–TG interactions using the Shapley value, which estimates the contribution of each feature for each gene.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The correlation of TF and RE parameters learned in the second layer reflects TF–RE binding strength.

    “The TF–RE binding strength is generated by the correlation of TF and RE parameters learned in the second layer (Fig. 1a).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    ChIP-seq putative targets are valid ground truth for trans-regulatory potential.

    “The ground truth data in a–d are putative targets of TFs from ChIP–seq data for the corresponding cell types in PBMCs.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Perturbation experiment data from KnockTF are valid ground truth for direct DEGs under TF perturbation.

    “using perturbation experiment data as ground truth”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The underlying regulatory drivers of disease remain elusive despite researchers often identifying DEGs between cases and controls using bulk or single-cell expression data.

    “Researchers often identify DEGs between cases and controls using bulk or single-cell expression data, but the underlying regulatory drivers remain elusive.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    TF activity, focusing on the DNA-binding component of TF proteins, is a more reliable metric than mRNA for identifying driver regulators.

    “TF activity, focusing on the DNA-binding component of TF proteins, is a more reliable metric than mRNA for identifying driver regulators.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Estimating TF activity based on the expression patterns of downstream TGs requires an accurate GRN.

    “One feasible approach is to estimate TF activity based on the expression patterns of downstream TGs, which necessitates the availability of an accurate GRN.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The GRN structure is consistent for the same cell type across individuals.

    “Assuming that the GRN structure is consistent for the same cell type across individuals”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Traditionally, GRN inference performance is assessed by gene expression prediction.

    “Traditionally, GRN inference performance is assessed by gene expression prediction.”
12 of 12

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

2 of 2

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Chaudhri, Z. & Liu, B. Lifelong Machine Learning (Springer International Publishing, 2022).

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Metadata

Authors
Yuan, Q., & Duren, Z.
Affiliations
Clemson University (US)
Corresponding author
Duren, Zhana
Venue
Nature Biotechnology
Published
2024-04-12
Volume
43
Issue
2
Pages
247-257
ISSN
  • 0733-222X (ISSN-L)
  • 1087-0156
  • 1546-1696
OpenAlex
W4394764901
Cited by
118
References
100
Citations by year
2026: 48 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 17
FWCI
13.74
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Biotechnology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of General Medical Sciences (P20 GM139769, R35 GM150513)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gene Regulatory Network Analysis
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
Keywords
gene regulatory network inference, chromatin accessibility, gene expression, manifold regularization, transcription factor binding motifs, case-control study, disease-associated variants, genome-wide association study
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, Chromatin, Gene Expression Regulation, Humans, Transcription Factors, Neural Networks, Computer, Computational Biology, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Regulatory Networks, Genome-Wide Association Study, Single-Cell Analysis

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