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The human brain is a complex organ that consists of several regions each with a unique gene expression pattern. Our intent in this study was to construct a gene co-expression network (GCN) for the normal brain using RNA expression profiles from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. The brain GCN contains gene correlation relationships that are broadly present in the brain or specific to thirteen brain regions, which we later combined into six overarching brain mini-GCNs based on the brain’s structure. Using the expression profiles of brain region-specific GCN edges, we determined how well the brain region samples could be discriminated from each other, visually with t-SNE plots or quantitatively with the Gene Oracle deep learning classifier. Next, we tested these gene sets on their relevance to human tumors of brain and non-brain origin. Interestingly, we found that genes in the six brain mini-GCNs showed markedly higher mutation rates in tumors relative to matched sets of random genes. Further, we found that cortex genes subdivided Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSC) tumors and Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma (PCPG) tumors into distinct groups. The brain GCN and mini-GCNs are useful resources for the classification of brain regions and identification of biomarker genes for brain related phenotypes.

 

We investigate the challenges of building an end‐to‐end cloud pipeline for real‐time intelligent visual inspection system for use in automotive manufacturing. Current methods of visual detection in automotive assembly are highly labor intensive, and thus prone to errors. An automated process is sought that can operate within the real‐time constraints of the assembly line and can reduce errors. Components of the cloud pipeline include capture of a large set of high‐definition images from a camera setup at the assembly location, transfer and storage of the images as needed, execution of object detection, and notification to a human operator when a fault is detected. The end‐to‐end execution must complete within a fixed time frame before the next car arrives in the assembly line. In this article, we report the design, development, and experimental evaluation of the tradeoffs of performance, accuracy, and scalability for a cloud system.

 

Given the complex relationship between gene expression and phenotypic outcomes, computationally efficient approaches are needed to sift through large high-dimensional datasets in order to identify biologically relevant biomarkers. In this report, we describe a method of identifying the most salient biomarker genes in a dataset, which we call “candidate genes”, by evaluating the ability of gene combinations to classify samples from a dataset, which we call “classification potential”. Our algorithm, Gene Oracle, uses a neural network to test user defined gene sets for polygenic classification potential and then uses a combinatorial approach to further decompose selected gene sets into candidate and non-candidate biomarker genes. We tested this algorithm on curated gene sets from the Molecular Signatures Database (MSigDB) quantified in RNAseq gene expression matrices obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) data repositories. First, we identified which MSigDB Hallmark subsets have significant classification potential for both the TCGA and GTEx datasets. Then, we identified the most discriminatory candidate biomarker genes in each Hallmark gene set and provide evidence that the improved biomarker potential of these genes may be due to reduced functional complexity.

 

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) subtypes are characterized by distinct molecular profiles. Using RNA expression profiles from 1,009 RCC samples, we constructed a condition-annotated gene coexpression network (GCN). The RCC GCN contains binary gene coexpression relationships (edges) specific to conditions including RCC subtype and tumor stage. As an application of this resource, we discovered RCC GCN edges and modules that were associated with genetic lesions in known RCC driver genes, including VHL, a common initiating clear cell RCC (ccRCC) genetic lesion, and PBRM1 and BAP1 which are early genetic lesions in the Braided Cancer River Model (BCRM). Since ccRCC tumors with PBRM1 mutations respond to targeted therapy differently than tumors with BAP1 mutations, we focused on ccRCC-specific edges associated with tumors that exhibit alternate mutation profiles: VHL-PBRM1 or VHL-BAP1. We found specific blends molecular functions associated with these two mutation paths. Despite these mutation-associated edges having unique genes, they were enriched for the same immunological functions suggesting a convergent functional role for alternate gene sets consistent with the BCRM. The condition annotated RCC GCN described herein is a novel data mining resource for the assignment of polygenic biomarkers and their relationships to RCC tumors with specific molecular and mutational profiles.

 

Changes in gene expression can rapidly influence adaptive traits in the early stages of lineage diversification. Venom is an adaptive trait comprised of numerous toxins used for prey capture and defense. Snake venoms can vary widely between conspecific populations, but the influence of lineage diversification on such compositional differences are unknown. To explore venom differentiation in the early stages of lineage diversification, we used RNA-seq and mass spectrometry to characterize Sidewinder Rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes) venom. We generated the first venom-gland transcriptomes and complementary venom proteomes for eight individuals collected across the United States and tested for expression differences across life history traits and between subspecific, mitochondrial, and phylotranscriptomic hypotheses. Sidewinder venom was comprised primarily of hemorrhagic toxins, with few cases of differential expression attributable to life history or lineage hypotheses. However, phylotranscriptomic lineage comparisons more than doubled instances of significant expression differences compared to all other factors. Nevertheless, only 6.4% of toxins were differentially expressed overall, suggesting that shallow divergence has not led to major changes in Sidewinder venom composition. Our results demonstrate the need for consensus venom-gland transcriptomes based on multiple individuals and highlight the potential for discrepancies in differential expression between different phylogenetic hypotheses.

 

Soft nanoparticles (NPs) are emerging candidates for nano medicine, particularly for intercellular imaging and targeted drug delivery. Their soft nature, manifested in their dynamics, allows translocation into organisms without damaging their membranes. A crucial step towards incorporating soft dynamic NPs in nano medicine, is to resolve their interrelation with membranes. Here using atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations we probe the interaction of soft NPs formed by conjugated polymers with a model membrane. These NPs, often termed polydots, are confined to their nano dimensions without any chemical tethers, forming dynamic long lived nano structures. Specifically, polydots formed by dialkyl para poly phenylene ethylene (PPE), with a varying number of carboxylate groups tethered to the alkyl chains to tune the interfacial charge of the surface of the NP are investigated at the interface with a model membrane that consists of di-palmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC). We find that even though polydots are controlled only by physical forces, they retain their NP configuration as they transcend the membrane. Regardless of their size, neutral polydots spontaneously penetrate the membrane whereas carboxylated polydots must be driven in, with a force that depends on the charge at their interface, all without significant disruption to the membrane. These fundamental results provide a means to control the position of the nanoparticles with respect to the membrane interfaces, which is key to their therapeutic use. 

HYPERGRAPHS provide the formalism needed to solve problems consisting of interconnected item sets. Similar to a traditional graph, the hypergraph has the added generalization that “hyperedges” may connect any number of nodes. Domains such as very-large-scale integration for creating integrated circuits [1], machine learning [2], [3], [4], parallel algorithms [5], combinatorial scientific computing [6], and social network analysis [7], [8] all contain significant and challenging instances of hypergraph problems. One important problem, Hypergraph partitioning, involves dividing the nodes of a hypergraph among k similarly-sized disjoint sets while reducing the number of hyperedges that span multiple partitions. In the context of load balancing, this is the problem of dividing logical threads (nodes) that share data dependencies (hyperedges) among available machines (partitions) in order to balance the number of threads per machine and minimize communication overhead. However, hypergraph partitioning is both NP-Hard to solve [9] and approximate [10]. 

Speech enhancement is an essential component in robust automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. Most speech enhancement methods are nowadays based on neural networks that use feature-mapping or mask-learning. This paper proposes a novel speech enhancement method that integrates time-domain feature mapping and mask learning into a unified framework using a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). The proposed framework processes the received waveform and decouples speech and noise signals, which are fed into two short-time Fourier transform (STFT) convolution 1-D layers that map the waveforms to spectrograms in the complex domain. These speech and noise spectrograms are then used to compute the speech mask loss. The proposed method is evaluated using the TIMIT data set for seen and unseen signal-to-noise ratio conditions. It is shown that the proposed method outperforms the speech enhancement methods that use Deep Neural Network (DNN) based speech enhancement or a Speech Enhancement Generative Adversarial Network (SEGAN).