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Integration of multiomics data with graph convolutional networks to identify new cancer genes and their associated molecular mechanisms

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 3, pages 513–526 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The increase in available high-throughput molecular data creates computational challenges for the identification of cancer genes. Genetic as well as non-genetic causes contribute to tumorigenesis, and this necessitates the development of predictive models to effectively integrate different data modalities while being interpretable. We introduce EMOGI, an explainable machine learning method based on graph convolutional networks to predict cancer genes by combining multiomics pan-cancer data—such as mutations, copy number changes, DNA methylation and gene expression—together with protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks. EMOGI was on average more accurate than other methods across different PPI networks and datasets. We used layer-wise relevance propagation to stratify genes according to whether their classification was driven by the interactome or any of the omics levels, and to identify important modules in the PPI network. We propose 165 novel cancer genes that do not necessarily harbour recurrent alterations but interact with known cancer genes, and we show that they correspond to essential genes from loss-of-function screens. We believe that our method can open new avenues in precision oncology and be applied to predict biomarkers for other complex diseases.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the EMOGI framework.
Fig. 2: EMOGI outperforms previous methods in predicting cancer genes and benefits from both, multiomics and network features.
Fig. 3: Model explanation of well-known cancer genes recapitulates their oncogenic molecular mechanisms.
Fig. 4: NPCGs interact with KCGs and are more essential in tumour cell lines.
Fig. 5: Biclustering of genes and feature contributions reveals distinct classes of cancer genes with unique functional characteristics.
Fig. 6: EMOGI allows extraction of PPI network components corresponding to subnetworks important for cancer gene classification.

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Data availability

All datasets used in this study are publicly available or available for research organization and listed in Supplementary Section 2.7. The github repository (https://github.com/schulter/EMOGI) contains manifest files that can be used to download TCGA data using the GDC Data Transfer Tool.

Code availability

The source code to train the EMOGI model and reproduce the results is available at https://github.com/schulter/EMOGI (ref. 95) and a compute capsule is available96. The trained multiomics models for all six PPI networks can be downloaded from https://owww.molgen.mpg.de/sasse/EMOGI/.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Vingron, R. Herwig and G. Barel for fruitful discussions, M. Vingron and C. Marr for proofreading the manuscript, and IMPRS for Computational Biology and Scientific Computing funding to R.S.-S. and S.B.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany

    Roman Schulte-Sasse, Stefan Budach, Denes Hnisz & Annalisa Marsico

  2. Institute for Computational Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, German Research Centre for Environmental Health, Munich, Germany

    Annalisa Marsico

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  1. Roman Schulte-Sasse
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  2. Stefan Budach
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Contributions

R.S.-S. and A.M. conceived the idea of EMOGI. R.S.-S. designed and implemented the model and performed data analysis. S.B. helped to implement parts of the feature interpretation framework. A.M. supervised the study and provided resources. D.H. helped with the biological interpretation of the results and editing the manuscript. R.S.-S. and A.M. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Annalisa Marsico.

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Peer review information Nature Machine Intelligence thanks Joel Nulsen, Kevin Y. Yip and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Schulte-Sasse, R., Budach, S., Hnisz, D. et al. Integration of multiomics data with graph convolutional networks to identify new cancer genes and their associated molecular mechanisms. Nat Mach Intell 3, 513–526 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00325-y

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