The DOI matches its Crossref record; 161 of the 163 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet.
Base-resolution models of transcription-factor binding reveal soft motif syntax
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
The arrangement (syntax) of transcription factor (TF) binding motifs is an important part of the cis-regulatory code, yet remains elusive. We introduce a deep learning model, BPNet, that uses DNA sequence to predict base-resolution chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-nexus binding profiles of pluripotency TFs. We develop interpretation tools to learn predictive motif representations and identify soft syntax rules for cooperative TF binding interactions. Strikingly, Nanog preferentially binds with helical periodicity, and TFs often cooperate in a directional manner, which we validate using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-induced point mutations. Our model represents a powerful general approach to uncover the motifs and syntax of cis-regulatory sequences in genomics data.
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“The BPNet architecture has been used widely in genomics and represents a very strong default architecture for modeling small-sized datasets from scratch through supervised learning.”
From Nucleotide Transformer: building and evaluating robust foundation models for human genomics (2025) · cites this paper as [9]
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“Machine-learning models trained to predict function from DNA sequences have been successful at characterizing regulatory syntax and interpreting genetic variant effects.”
From Predicting RNA-seq coverage from DNA sequence as a unifying model of gene regulation (2025) · cites this paper as [7]
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“Thus far, such models have focused on assays in which measured activity is proportional to local sequencing read counts.”
From Predicting RNA-seq coverage from DNA sequence as a unifying model of gene regulation (2025) · cites this paper as [7]
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“Finer resolution has potential benefits when the data support it15, but would extend the sequence length entering the quadratic complexity MHA and make the model engineering intractable on currently available hardware.”
From Effective gene expression prediction from sequence by integrating long-range interactions (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
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“Additionally, a deep learning algorithm applied to binding of pluripotency TFs at base resolution in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) suggested a “soft motif syntax” whereby TFs help each other to bind directly to the enhancer with a lenient distance-dependency between binding sites [98].”
From Transcriptional enhancers and their communication with gene promoters (2021) · cites this paper as [98]
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Cites
Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition
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The Sequence Alignment/Map format and SAMtools
Li, H., Handsaker, B., Wysoker, A., Fennell, T., Ruan, J., Homer, N., Marth, G., Abecasis, G., Durbin, R., & 1000 Genome Project Data Processing Subgroup (2009) · Bioinformatics · doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btp352 · Cited by 62,041
Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows-Wheeler transform
Li, H., & Durbin, R. (2009) · Bioinformatics · doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btp324 · Cited by 58,607
Cutadapt removes adapter sequences from high-throughput sequencing reads
Martin, M. (2011) · EMBnet.journal · doi:10.14806/ej.17.1.200 · Cited by 33,889
Kimura, M. (1980) · Journal of Molecular Evolution · doi:10.1007/bf01731581 · Cited by 29,778
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Quinlan, A. R., & Hall, I. M. (2010) · Bioinformatics · doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btq033 · Cited by 27,437
Ultrafast and memory-efficient alignment of short DNA sequences to the human genome.
Langmead, B., Trapnell, C., Pop, M., & Salzberg, S. L. (2009) · Genome Biology · doi:10.1186/gb-2009-10-3-r25 · Cited by 21,849
Hierarchical Grouping to Optimize an Objective Function
Ward, J. H. (1963) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.1080/01621459.1963.10500845 · Cited by 21,341
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Shrikumar, A. et al. TF-MoDISco v0.4.2.2-alpha: technical note. Preprint at arXiv https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00416 (2018). · arXiv
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JASPAR 2022: the 9th release of the open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles
Castro-Mondragon, J. A., Riudavets-Puig, R., Rauluseviciute, I., Berhanu Lemma, R., Turchi, L., Blanc-Mathieu, R., Lucas, J., Boddie, P., Khan, A., Manosalva Pérez, N., et al. (2022) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkab1113 · Cited by 1,935
“A novel generation of computational models based on machine learning approaches such as deep learning are arising (68,69).”
Effective gene expression prediction from sequence by integrating long-range interactions
Avsec, Ž., Agarwal, V., Visentin, D., Ledsam, J. R., Grabska-Barwinska, A., Taylor, K. R., Assael, Y., Jumper, J., Kohli, P., & Kelley, D. R. (2021) · Nature Methods · doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01252-x · Cited by 1,326
“Machine learning success depends on the training data, so increasing the resolution and quality of the target tracks 14 , and curating data from additional organisms 2 , would likely boost performance.”
BackgroundSelf-citationJASPAR 2024: 20th anniversary of the open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles
Rauluševičiūtė, I., Puig, R. R., Blanc‐Mathieu, R., Castro-Mondragon, J. A., Ferenc, K., Kumar, V., Lemma, R. B., Lucas, J., Chèneby, J., Baranas̆ić, D., et al. (2023) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkad1059 · Cited by 1,110
“Mostly based on convolutional neural networks, deep learning models are now considered state-of-the-art to accurately model data generated from genomic assays such as ChIP-seq, ChIP-nexus, or A T AC-seq ( 47– 49 ).”
MethodNucleotide Transformer: building and evaluating robust foundation models for human genomics
Dalla-Torre, H., Gonzalez, L., Mendoza-Revilla, J., Lopez Carranza, N., Grzywaczewski, A. H., Oteri, F., Dallago, C., Trop, E., de Almeida, B. P., Sirelkhatim, H., et al. (2025) · Nature Methods · doi:10.1038/s41592-024-02523-z · Cited by 772
“In this context, specialized deep-learning (DL) models have been trained to uncover meaningful patterns of DNA 9–12 .”
InfluentialGENCODE: reference annotation for the human and mouse genomes in 2023
Frankish, A., Sala, S. C., Diekhans, M., Jungreis, I., Loveland, J. E., Mudge, J. M., Sisu, C., Wright, J. C., Arnan, C., Barnes, I., et al. (2022) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1071 · Cited by 671
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Metadata
- Authors
- Avsec, Ž., Weilert, M., Shrikumar, A., Krueger, S., Alexandari, A., Dalal, K., Fropf, R., McAnany, C., Gagneur, J., Kundaje, A., & Zeitlinger, J.
- Affiliations
- Google DeepMind (United Kingdom) (GB)
- Stowers Institute for Medical Research (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Kundaje, Anshul
- Zeitlinger, Julia
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Genetics
- Published
- 2021-02-18
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 354-366
- ISSN
- 1061-4036 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1718
- PMC
- PMC8812996
- OpenAlex
- W3130819465
- Cited by
- 610
- References
- 163
- Citations by year
- 2026: 118 · 2025: 108 · 2024: 124 · 2023: 102 · 2022: 90 · 2021: 49
- FWCI
- 29.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Genetics (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Human Genome Research Institute (1R01HG010211, 1U01HG009431, 1R01HG009674)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (International Student Research Fellowship)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of General Medical Sciences (1DP2GM123485)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gene Regulatory Network Analysis
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
- Keywords
- transcription factor binding, pluripotency transcription factors, Nanog, helical periodicity, explainable deep learning
- MeSH terms
- Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells, Nanog Homeobox Protein, Deep Learning, Animals, Binding Sites, Transcription Factors, Reproducibility of Results, Neural Networks, Computer, Computational Biology, Chromatin Immunoprecipitation, Octamer Transcription Factor-3, Mice, SOXB1 Transcription Factors, Nucleotide Motifs, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats
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