SignalSpider

Probabilistic Modeling and Pattern Discovery on Multiple Normalized ChIP-Seq Signal Profiles

Overview

The technology of Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-Seq) measures the genome-wide occupancy of DNA-binding proteins in vivo. On the other hand, it is well-known that different combinations of DNA-binding protein occupancies may result in a gene being regulated in different tissues or at different developmental stages. To fully understand a gene's function, we propose a probabilistic model for deciphering the combinatorial binding of DNA-binding proteins. The model (SignalSpider) aims at modeling and extracting patterns from multiple ChIP-Seq profiles. We have built the SignalSpider models on the normalized ChIP-Seq profiles from Wiggler. With the support of Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis, evolutionary conservation, chromatin interaction enrichment analysis, and wet-lab studies, we found that the discovered patterns show meaningful biological insight in a genome-wide scale.

Downloads

	win64	linux64
MCR (Matlab Compiler Runtime)	download(R2010a)	download(R2012b)
SignalSpider Executables and Demo Dataset (zipped)	download	download

For source codes and potential collaborations, please contact Ka-Chun Wong

Command Usage

SignalSpider inFilePath [outModelPath] [numOfCombinations] [numOfBindingModes] [threshold] [maxIterations] [replicates]

Input Arguments:
inFilePath	The input profile signal file path (example: testData.csv)
outModelPath	The output SignalSpider model file path (default: SSmodel.mat)
numOfCombinations	Number of Clusters (default: 2)
numOfBindingModes	Number of Binding Modes (default: 2)
threshold	The tolerance used for testing convergence (default: 0.0001)
maxIterations	Maximal number of EM iterations (default: 100)
replicates	Number of replicates (default: 10)
Output Files:
A SignalSpider model file as specified in the input argument "outModelPath" (default: SSmodel.mat)
Modeling analysis files with the input argument "outModelPath" as the prefix of filenames.
Microsoft Windows 64-bits examples:
C:\> SignalSpider <argument_list>
C:\> SignalSpider testData.csv
C:\> SignalSpider testData.csv simpleModel.mat
C:\> SignalSpider testData.csv fancyModel.mat 10 3 0.00001 1000 100
Linux 64-bits examples:
>./run_SignalSpider.sh <mcr_directory> <argument_list>
>./run_SignalSpider.sh /mathworks/home/application/v80 testData.csv
>./run_SignalSpider.sh /mathworks/home/application/v80 testData.csv simpleModel.mat
>./run_SignalSpider.sh /mathworks/home/application/v80 testData.csv fancyModel.mat 10 3 0.00001 1000 100

 

FAQ

What is MCR ?

MCR is Matlab Compiler Runtime. If your machine does not have Matlab, you need to install MCR to execute SignalSpider. MCR can be downloaded from the internet easily. In particular, we advise you to download the same version indicated in the "Downloads" section.

Is there any demo ?

By default, a small testing dataset (testData.csv) is zipped with the SignalSpider executables in the "Downloads" section. Once downloaded, you can simply change your current directory to it and type "SignalSpider testData.csv" to run a SignalSpider demo on the testing dataset (which has 2 co-associate protein profiles). After the run, you will see the MATLAB SignalSpider model file (default: SSmodel.mat) and the image files as follow:

_ _ _ _

More data ?

Public ChIP-Seq data can be accessed through ENCODE consortium and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Details of Wiggler can be found here.

More questions ?

Please contact Ka-Chun Wong

Citation

Ka-Chun Wong, Yue Li, Chengbin Peng, Zhaolei Zhang*: SignalSpider: Probabilistic Pattern Discovery on Multiple Normalized ChIP-Seq SignalProfiles Bioinformatics (Advanced Online)