Visualizing specificity in coexpression networks aims to improve network visualization by minimizing "non-specific" interactions. It does this by shading nodes inversely to their degree in the full network, effectively down-weighting generic interactions. This helps combat the problem that network views may falsely imply specificity due to necessary data reduction. Node degree is found to be highly informative of function, with higher degree nodes tending to have more functions. Up-weighting nodes by degree specificity provides a simple way to customize network visualization without additional data or functional information.

1. Visualizing specificity in coexpression networks
Jesse Gillis*, Anton Zoubarev, Cameron McDonald, Thea Van Rossum, Paul Pavlidis
Department of Psychiatry and Centre for High-throughput Biology, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada
*Current address: Stanley Institute for Cognitive Genomics, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Woodbury, New York, USA
Networks diagrams are frequently derided as “hairballs”, Network views can be misleading Node degree estimation
suffering from poor interpretability. Here we describe an
Because of the limitations of network visualization tools, and the The current approach is based on counting how many
attempt to improve the situation with an idea inspired by difficult of interpreting large graphs Gemma, like other tools that coexpression pairs (“links”) the gene is involved in, across all
function prediction considerations. use network visualization, limits the size of the network that can experiments, with the constraint that the edge must occur in
be displayed. This makes it easy to forget that the data being at least two experiments. This corresponds to the data that is
visualized is part of a vastly larger network. This necessary stored during the analysis phase. This value is then re-
reduction may give the false impression that the portion of the expressed as a relative rank for the genes of that organism.
network being visualized is somehow representing information Thus the gene with the largest number of coexpression
specific to the genes shown. As the above discussion of node partners has a score of 1.0, and that with the lowest 0.0
degree biases suggests, this is potentially a very misleading (there can be ties).
assumption.
This method has the benefit of simplicity, and it is intuitive
This coexpression-derived network might be considered
highly suggestive of functional relations between Ankyrin 2 because it is tied directly to the data users will be able to
and Synaptotagmin 4, but these genes are embedded in a access in the system. However, users should be aware that
much larger network. Edge thickness indicates the level of
support (thicker means more experiments exhibit this link). the measure is potentially sensitive to sources of variance
The context for our study is coexpression network analysis and Nodes with red circles were initial query genes.
that are not biological in nature, most importantly the
visualization of interaction specificity using Gemma number of data sets in which the gene is tested. Genes which
(http://chibi.ubc.ca/Gemma). Gemma is a database and analysis To combat this problem within Gemma we use the rank statistics are tested more often will tend to have more links. A more
software system with analyzed data from over 4000 expression of gene node degrees to visually up-weight genes by their complex measure that takes that source of variance into
profiling studies (Zoubarev et al., 2012) interaction specificity in the full network (effectively down- account is correlated with the simpler measure (Spearman
weighting by the prior probability of the interaction occurring rho=~0.7), but not as readily understandable. In addition, the
generically, as determined from the node degrees). Importantly, fact that a gene has a high node degree whether it is due to
the network sparsification is accomplished without any use of frequent testing or not is still of interpretational significance.
functional information or additional network data. Variations on
this approach are not uncommon in function prediction
algorithms, but to our knowledge, have not been implemented to Another example,
the coexpression
customize visualization in gene network analyses.
network for CBWD5.
Conclusions
We suggest that the approach outlined here is a way to
improve the utility of network views by minimizing the
Node degree is highly informative Nodes are shaded
inversely to their node
degree in the full
impact of “non-specific” interactions. It is easy to implement
network, not just the because node degrees can be computed ahead of time and
visualized fragment.
Previously we showed that gene function can be predicted from The query was mouse network visualization tools (e.g. Cytoscape Web, as used
networks without using interactions directly (Gillis and Pavlidis, semaphorin genes
here) have support for modifying node color. There are likely
2011). We observed that ranking genes by their node degrees to be many ways to improve on our scheme. For example,
results in surprisingly good “guilt-by-association” performance;
about one-half of performance could be attributed entirely to node
Coexpression analysis method we have not yet attempted to “optimize” our mapping
between node degree and “visibility”.
degree effects.
Increasing number of neighbours
“hubs”
The method was previously described by Lee et al. (2004). For
each data set, pairs of probes showing a statistically significant
Pearson correlation are identified using stringent multiple test
correction criteria and stored. No more than 1% of the
correlations for any data set were stored in any case. The stored
Increasing number of GO annotations “links” are available for queries by end-users. The number of data
Node degree is predictive because genes that have high node sets in which a link is observed is referred to as the support. In References
degree tend to have many functions (e.g. GO terms). Thus for any general, only links that occur in at least two data sets are Visualizations were built using Cytoscape Web
(http://cytoscapeweb.cytoscape.org/)
given prediction task, algorithms that assign any given function to retrieved, though the choice of data sets to be searched can be
Zouberev A., Hamer K.M., Keshav K., McCarthy E.L.M., Santos J.R.C., Van
high node-degree genes appear to perform well without using changed by the user. The idea is that the more data sets which Rossum T., McDonald C., Hall A., Wan X., Lim R., Gillis J., Pavlidis P. (2012)
information on which genes are associated with which. More support a link, the less likely the link is due to technical artifacts. Gemma: A resource for the re-use, sharing and meta-analysis of
concretely, when studying any biological process, simply assuming expression profiling data. Bioinformatics, in press.
P53 (for example) is implicated will go a surprisingly long way, and Grant support Lee, H.K., et al., (2004) Coexpression analysis of human genes across
networks encode this completely generic information in their node many microarray data sets. Genome Research 14: p. 1085-1094.
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