--- title: "Pathway activity inference in bulk RNA-seq" author: - name: Pau Badia-i-Mompel affiliation: - Heidelberg Universiy output: BiocStyle::html_document: self_contained: true toc: true toc_float: true toc_depth: 3 code_folding: show package: "`r pkg_ver('decoupleR')`" vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{Pathway activity inference in bulk RNA-seq} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} --- ```{r setup, include=FALSE} knitr::opts_chunk$set( collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>" ) ``` Bulk RNA-seq yield many molecular readouts that are hard to interpret by themselves. One way of summarizing this information is by inferring pathway activities from prior knowledge. In this notebook we showcase how to use `decoupleR` for pathway activity inference with a bulk RNA-seq data-set where the transcription factor FOXA2 was knocked out in pancreatic cancer cell lines. The data consists of 3 Wild Type (WT) samples and 3 Knock Outs (KO). They are freely available in [GEO](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE119931). # Loading packages First, we need to load the relevant packages: ```{r "load packages", message = FALSE} ## We load the required packages library(decoupleR) library(dplyr) library(tibble) library(tidyr) library(ggplot2) library(pheatmap) library(ggrepel) ``` # Loading the data-set Here we used an already processed bulk RNA-seq data-set. We provide the normalized log-transformed counts, the experimental design meta-data and the Differential Expressed Genes (DEGs) obtained using `limma`. For this example we use `limma` but we could have used `DeSeq2`, `edgeR` or any other statistical framework. decoupleR requires a gene level statistic to perform enrichment analysis but it is agnostic of how it was generated. However, we do recommend to use statistics that include the direction of change and its significance, for example the t-value obtained for `limma`(`t`) or `DeSeq2`(`stat`). edgeR does not return such statistic but we can create our own by weighting the obtained logFC by pvalue with this formula: `-log10(pvalue) * logFC`. We can open the data like this: ```{r "load data"} inputs_dir <- system.file("extdata", package = "decoupleR") data <- readRDS(file.path(inputs_dir, "bk_data.rds")) ``` From `data` we can extract the mentioned information. Here we see the normalized log-transformed counts: ```{r "counts"} # Remove NAs and set row names counts <- data$counts %>% dplyr::mutate_if(~ any(is.na(.x)), ~ if_else(is.na(.x),0,.x)) %>% column_to_rownames(var = "gene") %>% as.matrix() head(counts) ``` The design meta-data: ```{r "design"} design <- data$design design ``` And the results of `limma`, of which we are interested in extracting the obtained t-value from the contrast: ```{r "deg"} # Extract t-values per gene deg <- data$limma_ttop %>% select(ID, t) %>% filter(!is.na(t)) %>% column_to_rownames(var = "ID") %>% as.matrix() head(deg) ``` # PROGENy model [PROGENy](https://saezlab.github.io/progeny/) is a comprehensive resource containing a curated collection of pathways and their target genes, with weights for each interaction. For this example we will use the human weights (other organisms are available) and we will use the top 500 responsive genes ranked by p-value. Here is a brief description of each pathway: - **Androgen**: involved in the growth and development of the male reproductive organs. - **EGFR**: regulates growth, survival, migration, apoptosis, proliferation, and differentiation in mammalian cells - **Estrogen**: promotes the growth and development of the female reproductive organs. - **Hypoxia**: promotes angiogenesis and metabolic reprogramming when O2 levels are low. - **JAK-STAT**: involved in immunity, cell division, cell death, and tumor formation. - **MAPK**: integrates external signals and promotes cell growth and proliferation. - **NFkB**: regulates immune response, cytokine production and cell survival. - **p53**: regulates cell cycle, apoptosis, DNA repair and tumor suppression. - **PI3K**: promotes growth and proliferation. - **TGFb**: involved in development, homeostasis, and repair of most tissues. - **TNFa**: mediates haematopoiesis, immune surveillance, tumour regression and protection from infection. - **Trail**: induces apoptosis. - **VEGF**: mediates angiogenesis, vascular permeability, and cell migration. - **WNT**: regulates organ morphogenesis during development and tissue repair. To access it we can use `decoupleR`: ```{r "progeny", message=FALSE} net <- get_progeny(organism = 'human', top = 500) net ``` # Activity inference with Multivariate Linear Model (MLM) To infer pathway enrichment scores we will run the Multivariate Linear Model (`mlm`) method. For each sample in our dataset (`mat`), it fits a linear model that predicts the observed gene expression based on all pathways' Pathway-Gene interactions weights. Once fitted, the obtained t-values of the slopes are the scores. If it is positive, we interpret that the pathway is active and if it is negative we interpret that it is inactive. ![mlm](https://decoupler-py.readthedocs.io/en/1.4.0/_images/mlm.png) To run `decoupleR` methods, we need an input matrix (`mat`), an input prior knowledge network/resource (`net`), and the name of the columns of net that we want to use. ```{r "sample_mlm", message=FALSE} # Run mlm sample_acts <- run_mlm(mat=counts, net=net, .source='source', .target='target', .mor='weight', minsize = 5) sample_acts ``` # Visualization From the obtained results we will observe the obtained activities per sample in a heat-map: ```{r "heatmap"} # Transform to wide matrix sample_acts_mat <- sample_acts %>% pivot_wider(id_cols = 'condition', names_from = 'source', values_from = 'score') %>% column_to_rownames('condition') %>% as.matrix() # Scale per feature sample_acts_mat <- scale(sample_acts_mat) # Choose color palette palette_length = 100 my_color = colorRampPalette(c("Darkblue", "white","red"))(palette_length) my_breaks <- c(seq(-3, 0, length.out=ceiling(palette_length/2) + 1), seq(0.05, 3, length.out=floor(palette_length/2))) # Plot pheatmap(sample_acts_mat, border_color = NA, color=my_color, breaks = my_breaks) ``` We can also infer pathway activities from the t-values of the DEGs between KO and WT: ```{r "contrast_mlm", message=FALSE} # Run mlm contrast_acts <- run_mlm(mat=deg, net=net, .source='source', .target='target', .mor='weight', minsize = 5) contrast_acts ``` Let's show the changes in activity between KO and WT: ```{r "barplot"} # Plot ggplot(contrast_acts, aes(x = reorder(source, score), y = score)) + geom_bar(aes(fill = score), stat = "identity") + scale_fill_gradient2(low = "darkblue", high = "indianred", mid = "whitesmoke", midpoint = 0) + theme_minimal() + theme(axis.title = element_text(face = "bold", size = 12), axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1, size =10, face= "bold"), axis.text.y = element_text(size =10, face= "bold"), panel.grid.major = element_blank(), panel.grid.minor = element_blank()) + xlab("Pathways") ``` The pathway p53 and Trail are deactivated in KO when compared to WT, while MAPKK and JAK-STAT and seem to be activated. We can further visualize the most responsive genes in each pathway along their t-values to interpret the results. For example, let's see the genes that are belong to the MAPK pathway: ```{r "targets"} pathway <- 'MAPK' df <- net %>% filter(source == pathway) %>% arrange(target) %>% mutate(ID = target, color = "3") %>% column_to_rownames('target') inter <- sort(intersect(rownames(deg),rownames(df))) df <- df[inter, ] df['t_value'] <- deg[inter, ] df <- df %>% mutate(color = if_else(weight > 0 & t_value > 0, '1', color)) %>% mutate(color = if_else(weight > 0 & t_value < 0, '2', color)) %>% mutate(color = if_else(weight < 0 & t_value > 0, '2', color)) %>% mutate(color = if_else(weight < 0 & t_value < 0, '1', color)) ggplot(df, aes(x = weight, y = t_value, color = color)) + geom_point() + scale_colour_manual(values = c("red","royalblue3","grey")) + geom_label_repel(aes(label = ID)) + theme_minimal() + theme(legend.position = "none") + geom_vline(xintercept = 0, linetype = 'dotted') + geom_hline(yintercept = 0, linetype = 'dotted') + ggtitle(pathway) ``` The pathway seems to be active since the majority of target genes with positive weights have positive t-values (1st quadrant), and the majority of the ones with negative weights have negative t-values (3d quadrant). # Session information ```{r session_info, echo=FALSE} options(width = 120) sessioninfo::session_info() ```