DNAffinity: a machine-learning approach to predict DNA binding affinities of transcription factors.

Journal: Nucleic acids research
Published Date:

Abstract

We present a physics-based machine learning approach to predict in vitro transcription factor binding affinities from structural and mechanical DNA properties directly derived from atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. The method is able to predict affinities obtained with techniques as different as uPBM, gcPBM and HT-SELEX with an excellent performance, much better than existing algorithms. Due to its nature, the method can be extended to epigenetic variants, mismatches, mutations, or any non-coding nucleobases. When complemented with chromatin structure information, our in vitro trained method provides also good estimates of in vivo binding sites in yeast.

Authors

  • Sandro Barissi
    Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology. Baldiri Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
  • Alba Sala
    Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology. Baldiri Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
  • Miłosz Wieczór
    Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology. Baldiri Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
  • Federica Battistini
    Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology. Baldiri Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
  • Modesto Orozco
    Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona 08028, Spain.