Predicting and understanding transcription factor interactions based on sequence level determinants of combinatorial control
Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: MOTIVATION: Transcription factor interactions are the cornerstone of combinatorial control, which is a crucial aspect of the gene regulatory system. Understanding and predicting transcription factor interactions based on their sequence alone is difficult since they are often part of families of factors sharing high sequence identity. Given the scarcity of experimental data on interactions compared to available sequence data, however, it would be most useful to have accurate methods for the prediction of such interactions. RESULTS: We present a method consisting of a Random Forest-based feature-selection procedure that selects relevant motifs out of a set found using a correlated motif search algorithm. Prediction accuracy for several transcription factor families (bZIP, MADS, homeobox and forkhead) reaches 60-90%. In addition, we identified those parts of the sequence that are important for the interaction specificity, and show that these are in agreement with available data. We also used the predictors to perform genome-wide scans for interaction partners and recovered both known and putative new interaction partners.
Source: Bioinformatics
Institution: Wageningen University & Research
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2161789891