--- title: "ReducedExperiment" author: "Jack Gisby" date: "`r Sys.Date()`" output: BiocStyle::html_document: number_sections: yes toc: true vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{ReducedExperiment} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} --- ```{r setup, include = FALSE} # Bioc markdown style BiocStyle::markdown() # Knitr options knitr::opts_chunk$set( fig.width = 7, fig.height = 5, out.width = "70%", fig.align = "center", dpi = 300 ) ``` # Installation The release version of the package may be installed from Bioconductor, as follows: ```{r install-release, eval=FALSE} if (!requireNamespace("BiocManager", quietly = TRUE)) { install.packages("BiocManager") } BiocManager::install("ReducedExperiment") ``` Alternatively, the development version may be installed from Bioconductor or [GitHub](https://github.com/jackgisby/ReducedExperiment): ```{r install-devel, eval=FALSE} BiocManager::install("ReducedExperiment", version = "devel") devtools::install_github("jackgisby/ReducedExperiment") ``` # Introduction ```{r load-packages, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, include=TRUE} library(SummarizedExperiment) library(ReducedExperiment) library(ggplot2) theme_set(theme_bw()) ``` Dimensionality reduction approaches are often applied to reduce the complexity of high-dimensional datasets, such as gene expression data produced by microarrays and RNA sequencing. The `ReducedExperiment` containers are able to simultaneously store high-dimensional experimental data, sample- and feature-level metadata, and the dimensionally-reduced data. If you are not familiar with the `SummarizedExperiment` containers, we suggest first reading through the package vignette, either through the [Bioconductor website](https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/SummarizedExperiment.html) or by installing the package and running the following. ```{r se-vignette, eval=FALSE} vignette("SummarizedExperiment", package = "SummarizedExperiment") ``` The key benefit of `SummarizedExperiment` objects is that they allow for both assay and metadata to be kept in sync while slicing and reordering the features or samples of an object. The `ReducedExperiment` objects inherit methods from `SummarizedExperiment`, so the methods available for a `SummarizedExperiment` object will also work on a `ReducedExperiment`. When applying dimensionality reduction to high-dimensional datasets, we introduce additional complexity. In addition to assay, row and column data, we usually generate additional data matrices. For instance, methods like PCA or factor analysis tend to estimate a new matrix, with samples as rows and factors or components as columns. These methods also usually generate a loadings or rotation matrix, with features as rows and factors/components as columns. The `ReducedExperiment` containers extend `SummarizedExperiment` by allowing for the storage and slicing of these additional matrices in tandem with our original data. This package implements `ReducedExperiment`, a high-level class that can store an additional matrix with samples as rows and reduced dimensions as columns. We also implemented two additional child classes for working with common dimensionality reduction methods. The results of factor analysis can be stored in the `FactorisedExperiment` class, which additionally allows for the storage of a loadings matrix. The `ModularExperiment` class is built to store analyses based on gene modules, such as "Weighted Gene Correlation Network Analysis" (WGCNA), a popular method used to analyse transcriptomic datasets. ## Relationship to existing Bioconductor packages Several Bioconductor packages provide functionality for storing reduced dimensional representations alongside experimental data. These include packages designed for single-cell analysis, proteomics data, and other high-dimensional omics data types. These include the `SingleCellExperiment` Bioconductor package, which provides a `reducedDims` slot for storing multiple low-dimensional representations. While there is some overlap in capabilities, `ReducedExperiment` serves different use cases than existing frameworks: - **Purpose**: Most existing packages use dimensionality reduction primarily to enable visualisation and facilitate downstream analyses, like clustering. `SingleCellExperiment`, for example, is designed for single-cell workflows where reduced dimensions help manage technical noise and enable cell type identification. In contrast, `ReducedExperiment` focuses on methods where interpreting the components themselves is the primary goal, such as Independent Component Analysis or gene module analysis. - **Structure**: While packages like `SingleCellExperiment` allow storage of multiple dimensionality reduction results with minimal assumptions about their generation method, `ReducedExperiment` implements method-specific containers (e.g., `FactorisedExperiment`, `ModularExperiment`) that enforce strict relationships between features, samples, and components to enable specialised analyses. - **Analysis Methods**: `ReducedExperiment` provides integrated workflows for specific analysis approaches. For example, when working with ICA, it offers methods for assessing component stability and interpreting feature loadings. Some methods, like enrichment analysis, are available for multiple analysis types, with specific considerations for each. For workflows focused primarily on visualisation, clustering, or other downstream analyses, other Bioconductor containers may be more appropriate depending on your data type and analysis goals. `ReducedExperiment` is best suited for analyses where the interpretation of the components themselves (such as ICA factors or gene modules) is central to the research question. # Introducing `ReducedExperiment` containers with a case study There are two ways to build a `ReducedExperiment` object. Firstly, we provide convenience functions that both perform dimensionality reduction and package the results into the appropriate container class. We implement a method, `estimateFactors`, for identifying factors through Independent Component Analysis. We also provide a wrapper for applying WGCNA, `identifyModules`. In this section of the vignette, we will apply both of these methods to some sample RNA sequencing data. Alternatively, if you have already applied dimensionality reduction to your data, you may simply construct a `ReducedExperiment` object from scratch. For instructions on how to do this, see the section entitled "Constructing a `ReducedExperiment` from scratch". ## The case study data For the purposes of this vignette, we will be working with some RNA sequencing data generated for patients with COVID-19. The data were published in the following paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35454-4 The data loaded below are based on the data available from the Zenodo repository: https://zenodo.org/records/6497251 The data were normalised with edgeR's TMM method and transformed to log-counts per million. Genes with low counts were removed before further filtering to select high-variance genes. For the purposes of this example, only 500 genes were retained and we downsampled the patients. The COVID-19 data are split up into two cohorts, one for the first wave of COVID-19 (early-mid 2020) and another for the second (early 2021). In this vignette, we will mainly use the first cohort, whereas the second cohort will be used as a validation dataset. ```{r load-data} wave1_se <- readRDS(system.file( "extdata", "wave1.rds", package = "ReducedExperiment" )) wave2_se <- readRDS(system.file( "extdata", "wave2.rds", package = "ReducedExperiment" )) wave1_se ``` ## Applying factor analysis The first step in performing independent component analysis is to estimate the optimal number of components. We can do this with the `estimateStability` function. The results of this may be plotted with `plotStability`. Note that this can take a long time to run. To make this faster, we could change the `BPPARAM` term of `estimateStability` to run the analysis in parallel. The component estimation procedure is based on the maximally stable transcriptome dimension approach, described here: https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-017-4112-9 Using this method, we can plot the stability of the factors as a function of the number of components. The plot on the left shows a line for each run. We perform ICA for a sequence of components from 10 to 60, increasing the number of components by two each time. So, we run ICA for 10, 12, 14, etc. components and each of these runs produces a line in the plot. The plot on the right displays a single line displaying stability averaged over the runs. We ideally want to pick the maximal number of components with acceptable stability. Between 30-40 components, the component stability appears to drop off, so we move forward with 35 components. Note that the data subset we are using here has relatively few features for an RNA-seq (500). The drop-off in stability is more pronounced for the full dataset, making it easier to identify the elbow. ```{r estimate-stability, eval=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, include=TRUE} stability_res <- estimateStability( wave1_se, n_runs = 100, min_components = 10, max_components = 60, by = 2, mean_stability_threshold = 0.85, verbose = FALSE, BPPARAM = BiocParallel::SerialParam(RNGseed = 1) ) stability_plot <- plotStability(stability_res) print(stability_plot$combined_plot) ``` ```{r stability-image, echo=FALSE} #| fig.cap = "Stability of components as a function of the number of components." img_path <- system.file("stability.png", package = "ReducedExperiment") if (file.exists(img_path)) { knitr::include_graphics(img_path) } else { knitr::include_graphics("../figures/stability.png") } ``` Now we run the factor analysis with these components. We additionally set a stability threshold of 0.25 to remove components with low stability. This results in the identification of 34 factors. ```{r run-factor-analysis} wave1_fe <- estimateFactors( wave1_se, nc = 35, use_stability = TRUE, n_runs = 30, stability_threshold = 0.25, BPPARAM = BiocParallel::SerialParam(RNGseed = 1) ) wave1_fe ``` The output of factor analysis is a `FactorisedExperiment` object. This is not dissimilar from a `SummarizedExperiment` object, with some additional slots. The `FactorisedExperiment` contains an additional matrix for the dimensionally-reduced data (i.e., samples vs. factors) and one for the factor loadings (i.e., genes vs. factors). We can get the reduced data as so. ```{r get-factor-reduced} # get reduced data for first 5 samples and factors reduced(wave1_fe)[1:5, 1:5] ``` And we get the factor loadings below. ```{r get-factor-loadings} # get loadings for first 5 genes and factors loadings(wave1_fe)[1:5, 1:5] ``` Most of the normal operations that can be performed on `SummarizedExperiment` objects can also be performed on `FactorisedExperiment`s. We can slice them by samples, features and components, like so. ```{r slice-fe} dim(wave1_fe[1:20, 1:10, 1:5]) ``` ## Module analysis Similarly, we can run a module analysis using the weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) package: https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2105-9-559 The `ReducedExperiment` package provides wrapper functions for running such an analysis, before packaging them into a `ModularExperiment` class. First, we use the `assessSoftThreshold` function to determine the soft-thresholding power appropriate for our dataset. By default, the function selects the minimal power satisfying a minimal scale free topology fitting index of `0.85` and a maximal average connectivity of `100`. See WGCNA's `WGCNA::pickSoftThreshold` function for more details. ```{r assess-threshold} WGCNA::disableWGCNAThreads() wave1_fit_indices <- assessSoftThreshold(wave1_se) wave1_estimated_power <- wave1_fit_indices$Power[wave1_fit_indices$estimated_power] print(paste0("Estimated power: ", wave1_estimated_power)) ``` Now we can pass our data with the selected power to the `identifyModules` function. Since for this example we've filtered out most of the genes that were in the original dataset, we allow for the identification of smaller modules of genes (10). The dendrogram is also stored in this object, allowing us to plot the clusters of genes that are identified. ```{r plot-dendro} #| fig.cap = "Dendrogram of the modules identified in the first wave COVID-19 data." wave1_me <- identifyModules( wave1_se, verbose = 0, power = wave1_estimated_power, minModuleSize = 10 ) plotDendro(wave1_me) ``` In this case we only identify 8 modules (module_0 is not a module itself, but rather represents the unclustered genes, and is coloured in gray in the plot above). Far more modules were identified in the original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35454-4#Fig4 This is likely because we are only using a subset of samples and genes, and we've used a different soft thresholding power. While `identifyModules` can suggest a soft thresholding power automatically, it is generally recommended that the user carefully consider the parameters used to generate modules (e.g., by considering the output of `WGCNA::pickSoftThreshold`). For now, however, we will move forward with our 8 modules. ```{r print-me} wave1_me ``` The `ModularExperiment` functions much like a `FactorisedExperiment`, with a slot for the dimensionally-reduced data (samples vs. modules) and loadings (a vector containing a value for each gene). There is additionally a slot for the module assignments. The reduced data contain expression profiles for each module that are representative of the member genes, also referred to as an "eigengene". We can get these data as in the following chunk. ```{r get-module-reduced} # get reduced data for first 5 samples and factors reduced(wave1_me)[1:5, 1:5] ``` We can also find out which module each feature is assigned to. ```{r get-module-assignments} # get assignments for first 5 genes assignments(wave1_me)[1:5] ``` The `ModularExperiment` object also stores the loadings, indicating the alignment of each feature with the corresponding eigengene. ```{r get-module-loadings} # get loadings for first 5 genes loadings(wave1_me)[1:5] ``` ## Identifying factor and module associations One thing we might be interested in doing is identifying factors that are associated with disease outcomes. We can do this with the `associateComponents` function. First, we can look at the sample-level data available in the `SummarizedExperiment` container. ```{r show-coldata} selected_cols <- c( "sample_id", "individual_id", "case_control", "sex", "calc_age" ) colData(wave1_se)[, selected_cols] ``` In this case, we will focus on the `case_control` variable, indicating whether patients are COVID-19 positive or negative. For each component, we apply linear models that are adjusted for for sex and age. ```{r associate-components} f <- "~ case_control + sex + calc_age" associations_me <- associateComponents(wave1_me, method = "lm", formula = f) associations_fe <- associateComponents(wave1_fe, method = "lm", formula = f) ``` Below is a table for the significant associations between the factors and the `case_control` variable, encoding COVID-19 infection status. ```{r associate-table} associations_fe$summaries[ associations_fe$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE" & associations_fe$summaries$adj_pvalue < 0.05, c("term", "component", "estimate", "stderr", "adj_pvalue") ] ``` We can plot out these results. In the plot below, factors that are "upregulated" in COVID-19 patients are shown in red, whereas "downregulated" factors are in blue. The vertical line indicates significance (i.e., adjusted p-values less than 0.05). There are a number of factors that are significantly up- or down-regulated in COVID-19. ```{r plot-factor-associations} #| fig.cap = "Associations between factors and COVID-19 status." ggplot( associations_fe$summaries[ associations_fe$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE", ], aes(-log10(adj_pvalue), reorder(component, -log10(adj_pvalue)), fill = estimate ) ) + geom_point(pch = 21, size = 3) + xlab("-log10(adjusted p-value)") + ylab("Factor name (ordered by adjusted p-value)") + geom_vline(xintercept = -log10(0.05)) + scale_fill_gradient2(low = "#3A3A98", high = "#832424") ``` A similar plot for our modules shows significant upregulation of modules 1, 2, 7 and 8, along with down-regulation of modules 3 and 5. ```{r plot-module-associations} #| fig.cap = "Associations between modules and COVID-19 status." ggplot( associations_me$summaries[ associations_me$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE", ], aes(-log10(adj_pvalue), reorder(component, -log10(adj_pvalue)), fill = estimate ) ) + geom_point(pch = 21, size = 3) + xlab("-log10(adjusted p-value)") + ylab("Module name (ordered by adjusted p-value)") + geom_vline(xintercept = -log10(0.05)) + scale_fill_gradient2(low = "#3A3A98", high = "#832424") ``` ## Finding functional enrichments for factors and modules Now that we know which of our modules are up- and downregulated in COVID-19, we want to know more about the genes and pathways that are associated with our factors. As shown before, we know which genes belong to each module by accessing the module assignments in the `ModularExperiment` object. We can also estimate the centrality of the genes in the module, based on the `WGCNA::signedKME` function. ```{r module-centrality} module_centrality <- getCentrality(wave1_me) head(module_centrality) ``` This indicates the correlation of each feature with the corresponding module "eigengene". We can also identify the genes that are highly aligned with each factor, as follows: ```{r factor-alignments} aligned_features <- getAlignedFeatures(wave1_fe, format = "data.frame") head(aligned_features[, c("component", "feature", "value")]) ``` This shows the value of the loadings for the genes most highly associated with each factor. Some factors display moderate associations with many genes, whereas others show strong associations with just a few genes. We can also perform pathway enrichment analyses for both factors and modules. We use the enrichment methods implemented in the `clusterProfiler` package. By default, these functions run gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and overrepresentation tests for the factors and modules, respectively. For the purposes of this vignette, we'll just do an overrepresentation analysis for factor 5 and module 1. ```{r run-enrich, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE} TERM2GENE <- getMsigdbT2G() factor_5_enrich <- runEnrich( wave1_fe[, , "factor_5"], method = "overrepresentation", as_dataframe = TRUE, TERM2GENE = TERM2GENE ) module_1_enrich <- runEnrich( wave1_me[, , "module_1"], method = "overrepresentation", as_dataframe = TRUE, TERM2GENE = TERM2GENE ) ``` Factor 5 is enriched for the pathway "WP_NETWORK_MAP_OF_SARSCOV2_SIGNALING_PATHWAY". ```{r example-factor-enrichment} rownames(factor_5_enrich) <- NULL factor_5_enrich[, c("ID", "pvalue", "p.adjust", "geneID")] ``` Module 1 was upregulated in COVID-19 patients, and we see that it is primarily enriched for pathways related to complement. ```{r example-module-enrichment} #| fig.cap = "Top 15 enriched pathways for module 1." ggplot( module_1_enrich[1:15, ], aes(-log10(p.adjust), reorder(substr(ID, 1, 45), -log10(p.adjust))) ) + geom_point(pch = 21, size = 3) + xlab("-log10(adjusted p-value)") + ylab("Pathway name (ordered by adjusted p-value)") + expand_limits(x = 0) + geom_vline(xintercept = -log10(0.05)) ``` ## Applying factors and modules to new datasets Sometimes, we might want to calculate sample-level values of our factors and modules in a new dataset. In this instance, we have a second cohort that we might want to validate our results in. The `ReducedExperiment` package has methods for projecting new data into the factor-space defined previously and for recalculating eigengenes in new data. ### Factor projection The factor projection approach is similar to that applied by the `predict` method of `prcomp`. It uses the loadings calculated in the original dataset to calculate sample-level scores given new data. Essentially, it uses these loadings as a weighted score to perform the projection. Doing this is very simple, as you can see below. Note, however, that these methods assume that the new data (in this case, the wave 2 data) has been processed in the same way as the original data (in this case, wave 1). By default, the method applies standardisation to the new data using the means and standard deviations calculated in the original data. Additionally, note that, by default, the projected data are rescaled to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. So, it cannot be assumed that the projected data are on the same scale as the original data. With all that in mind, we can apply projection as follows. These datasets were processed and normalised in the same way. ```{r project-data} wave2_fe <- projectData(wave1_fe, wave2_se) wave2_fe ``` The new `FactorisedExperiment` created by projecting the wave 2 data (above) has the same genes (500) and factors (34) as the original `FactorisedExperiment` (below), but with different samples (83 vs. 65). ```{r reprint-original} wave1_fe ``` While we will avoid directly comparing the dimensionally-reduced data from the two cohorts, we can calculate associations between the factors and modules and COVID-19 status, as we did in the original cohort. In this dataset there are multiple samples for each patient, so we use a linear mixed model (`method = "lmer"`) rather than a standard linear model (`method = "lm"`). We also add a random intercept for the patient ID in the model formula. ```{r replicating-associations} replication_fe <- associateComponents( wave2_fe, method = "lmer", formula = paste0(f, " + (1|individual_id)") ) ``` While there are differences in the most significantly associated modules between the wave 1 and 2 cohorts, the results are broadly similar. ```{r plotting-replicated-associations} #| fig.cap = "Associations between modules and COVID-19 status in the wave 2 dataset." ggplot( replication_fe$summaries[ replication_fe$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE", ], aes( -log10(adj_pvalue), reorder(component, -log10(adj_pvalue)), fill = estimate ) ) + geom_point(pch = 21, size = 3) + xlab("-log10(adjusted p-value)") + ylab("Module name (ordered by adjusted p-value)") + geom_vline(xintercept = -log10(0.05)) + scale_fill_gradient2(low = "#3A3A98", high = "#832424") + expand_limits(x = 0) ``` And, as we see in the following chunk, the estimated associations between the modules and COVID-19 status (positive vs. negative) have a strong positive correlation. Differences in the estimated associations between modules and COVID-19 status may be explained by differences in the cohorts. For instance, different SARS-CoV-2 variants were in prevalent at the time the cohorts were sampled, and there were more treatments available for the 2021 (wave 2) cohort. ```{r correlation-with-projection} original_estimates <- associations_fe$summaries$estimate[ associations_fe$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE" ] replication_estimates <- replication_fe$summaries$estimate[ replication_fe$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE" ] cor.test(original_estimates, replication_estimates) ``` ### Applying modules to new data Similarly to factors, we can look at how our modules behave in new data. Below, we use `calcEigengenes` to do so, and we look at whether the modules behave similarly with respect to COVID-19 status. As we saw for factors, there is a reasonable concordance between the modules in the two datasets. ```{r calc-eigengenes-new-data} wave2_me <- calcEigengenes(wave1_me, wave2_se) replication_me <- associateComponents( wave2_me, method = "lmer", formula = paste0(f, " + (1|individual_id)") ) original_estimates <- associations_me$summaries$estimate[ associations_me$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE" ] replication_estimates <- replication_me$summaries$estimate[ replication_me$summaries$term == "case_controlPOSITIVE" ] cor.test(original_estimates, replication_estimates) ``` ### Module preservation We can also consider the preservation of modules. Below, we take our modules calculated in the Wave 1 dataset, and assess their reproducibility in the Wave 2 dataset. A variety of statistics are calculated by WGCNA's `modulePreservation`. By default, the `plotModulePreservation` function shows us the "medianRank" and "Zsummary" statistics. You can find out more about these in the corresponding [publication](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001057), but in general we are interested in modules with higher Zsummary scores. In short, we can consider modules above the blue line (Z > 2) to be moderately preserved and modules above the green line (Z > 10) to be highly preserved. We see that modules 1 and 2 have relatively high preservation in the Wave 2 dataset, whereas modules 5 and 0 (our unclustered genes) display relatively low preservation. ```{r module-preservation} #| fig.cap = "Module preservation between the Wave 1 and Wave 2 datasets." # Using a low number of permutations for the vignette mod_pres_res <- modulePreservation( wave1_me, wave2_se, verbose = 0, nPermutations = 5 ) plotModulePreservation(mod_pres_res) ``` # Extending the `ReducedExperiment` class The `SummarizedExperiment` package includes a detailed vignette explaining how to derive new containers from the `SummarizedExperiment` class. ```{r extension-vignette, eval=FALSE} vignette("Extensions", package = "SummarizedExperiment") ``` The `ReducedExperiment` containers may be extended in a similar fashion. In this package, we implemented `ReducedExperiment` and two derivative classes, `ModularExperiment` and `FactorisedExperiment`. While these are convenient for working with the output of module and factor analysis, respectively, other dimensionality reduction approaches may require the incorporation of additional components and methods. For instance, we could define a `PCAExperiment` class for storing the output of `stats::prcomp` (i.e., Principal Components Analysis, or PCA). The function produces the following: * `x`: The reduced data, which we will store in the existing `ReducedExperiment` `reduced` slot. * `rotation`: The feature loadings, for which we will create a new slot, * `sdev`: The standard deviations of the principal components, for which we will create a new slot. * `center` and `scale`: The centering and scaling used, which we will store in their existing `ReducedExperiment` slots. ```{r extend-class} PCAExperiment <- setClass( "PCAExperiment", contains = "ReducedExperiment", slots = representation( rotation = "matrix", sdev = "numeric" ) ) ``` We may then run `stats::prcomp` on our data and store the output in a `PCAExperiment` container. We give the original `SummarizedExperiment` object as an argument, and we also supply the outputs of `stats::prcomp` to the slots defined for `ReducedExperiment` and the new slots defined above for `PCAExperiment`. ```{r create-pca-experiment} prcomp_res <- stats::prcomp(t(assay(wave1_se)), center = TRUE, scale. = TRUE) my_pca_experiment <- PCAExperiment( wave1_se, reduced = prcomp_res$x, rotation = prcomp_res$rotation, sdev = prcomp_res$sdev, center = prcomp_res$center, scale = prcomp_res$scale ) my_pca_experiment ``` We can retrieve the principal components. ```{r get-pca-reduced} reduced(my_pca_experiment)[1:5, 1:5] ``` But to retrieve our new `rotation` matrix we need to define a "getter" method. ```{r get-rotation} setGeneric("rotation", function(x, ...) standardGeneric("rotation")) setMethod("rotation", "PCAExperiment", function(x, withDimnames = TRUE) { return(x@rotation) }) rotation(my_pca_experiment)[1:5, 1:5] ``` And to change the values of the `rotation` matrix we must also define a setter: ```{r set-rotation} setGeneric("rotation<-", function(x, ..., value) standardGeneric("rotation<-")) setReplaceMethod("rotation", "PCAExperiment", function(x, value) { x@rotation <- value validObject(x) return(x) }) # Set the value at position [1, 1] to 10 and get rotation(my_pca_experiment)[1, 1] <- 10 rotation(my_pca_experiment)[1:5, 1:5] ``` To fully flesh out our class we would also need to consider: * Defining getters and setters for the `sdev` slot * Implementing a constructor method to make creating `PCAExperiment` simpler and add sensible defaults * Implementing a method to check the validity of our object * Modifying existing methods, such as subsetting operations (i.e., `]`), to handle the new slots we have introduced For the `ModularExperiment` and `FactorisedExperiment` classes, we additionally implemented a variety of methods specific to the type of data they store. Since the results of PCA are similar to that of factor analysis, in practice it would likely be more straightforward to simply store these results in a `FactorisedExperiment`. # Constructing a `ReducedExperiment` from scratch If you have already applied dimensionality reduction to your data, you may be able to package the results into one of the `ReducedExperiment` containers. Below, we construct a `FactorisedExperiment` container based on the results of PCA applied to gene expression data. This container is appropriate, because we can store the sample-level principal components in the `reduced` slot of the object, and we may store the rotation matrix returned by `stats::prcomp` to the `loadings` slot. To construct our `FactorisedExperiment`, we provide a `SummarizedExperiment` as our first argument. In this case we reconstruct our `SummarizedExperiment` for demonstration purposes, but if you have already constructed a `SummarizedExperiment` you may simply pass this as the first argument. We then pass the results of `stats::prcomp` to the object's slots. This object is now ready to work with as described in the section above ("Introducing `ReducedExperiment` containers with a case study"). ```{r make-fe-from-pca} # Construct a SummarizedExperiment (if you don't already have one) expr_mat <- assay(wave1_se) pheno_data <- colData(wave1_se) se <- SummarizedExperiment( assays = list("normal" = expr_mat), colData = pheno_data ) # Calculate PCA with prcomp prcomp_res <- stats::prcomp(t(assay(se)), center = TRUE, scale. = TRUE) # Create a FactorisedExperiment container fe <- FactorisedExperiment( se, reduced = prcomp_res$x, loadings = prcomp_res$rotation, stability = prcomp_res$sdev, center = prcomp_res$center, scale = prcomp_res$scale ) fe ``` # Vignette references This vignette used publicly available gene expression data (RNA sequencing) from the following publication: * "Multi-omics identify falling LRRC15 as a COVID-19 severity marker and persistent pro-thrombotic signals in convalescence" (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35454-4) - Gisby *et al*., 2022 * Zenodo data deposition (https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.6497250) The stability-based ICA algorithm implemented in this package for identifying latent factors is based on the ICASSO algorithm, references for which can be found below: * "Icasso: software for investigating the reliability of ICA estimates by clustering and visualization" (https://doi.org/10.1109/NNSP.2003.1318025) - Himberg *et al*., 2003 * "stabilized-ica" Python package (https://github.com/ncaptier/stabilized-ica) - Nicolas Captier The `estimateStability` function is based on the related Most Stable Transcriptome Dimension approach, which also has a Python implementation provided by the stabilized-ica Python package. * "Determining the optimal number of independent components for reproducible transcriptomic data analysis" (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-017-4112-9) - Kairov *et al*., 2017 Identification of coexpressed gene modules is carried out through the Weighted Gene Correlation Network Analysis (WGCNA) framework * "WGCNA: an R package for weighted correlation network analysis" (https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-9-559) - Langfelder and Horvath, 2008 * "WGCNA" R package (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/WGCNA/index.html) * "Is My Network Module Preserved and Reproducible?" (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001057) - Langfelder, Luo, Oldham and Horvath, 2011 # Session Information Here is the output of `sessionInfo()` on the system on which this document was compiled: ```{r session-info, echo=FALSE} sessionInfo() ```