Gradient tree boosting and network propagation for the identification of pan-cancer survival networks.

Journal: STAR protocols
Published Date:

Abstract

Cancer survival prediction is typically done with uninterpretable machine learning techniques, e.g., gradient tree boosting. Therefore, additional steps are needed to infer biological plausibility of the predictions. Here, we describe a protocol that combines pan-cancer survival prediction with XGBoost tree-ensemble learning and subsequent propagation of the learned feature weights on protein interaction networks. This protocol is based on TCGA transcriptome data of 8,024 patients from 25 cancer types but can easily be adapted to cancer patient data from other sources. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Thedinga and Herwig (2022).

Authors

  • Kristina Thedinga
    Department of Computational Molecular Biology, Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
  • Ralf Herwig
    Department of Computational Molecular Biology, Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany.