Fully interpretable deep learning model of transcriptional control.

Journal: Bioinformatics (Oxford, England)
Published Date:

Abstract

MOTIVATION: The universal expressibility assumption of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) is the key motivation behind recent worksin the systems biology community to employDNNs to solve important problems in functional genomics and moleculargenetics. Typically, such investigations have taken a 'black box' approach in which the internal structure of themodel used is set purely by machine learning considerations with little consideration of representing the internalstructure of the biological system by the mathematical structure of the DNN. DNNs have not yet been applied to thedetailed modeling of transcriptional control in which mRNA production is controlled by the binding of specific transcriptionfactors to DNA, in part because such models are in part formulated in terms of specific chemical equationsthat appear different in form from those used in neural networks.

Authors

  • Yi Liu
    Department of Interventional Therapy, Ningbo No. 2 Hospital, Ningbo, China.
  • Kenneth Barr
    Department of Human Genetics, Ecology and Evolution, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology, Institute of Genomics and Systems Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
  • John Reinitz
    Departments of Statistics, Ecology and Evolution, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology, Institute of Genomics and Systems Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.