RMut: R package for a Boolean sensitivity analysis against various types of mutations

PLoS One. 2019 Mar 19;14(3):e0213736. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213736. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

There have been many in silico studies based on a Boolean network model to investigate network sensitivity against gene or interaction mutations. However, there are no proper tools to examine the network sensitivity against many different types of mutations, including user-defined ones. To address this issue, we developed RMut, which is an R package to analyze the Boolean network-based sensitivity by efficiently employing not only many well-known node-based and edgetic mutations but also novel user-defined mutations. In addition, RMut can specify the mutation area and the duration time for more precise analysis. RMut can be used to analyze large-scale networks because it is implemented in a parallel algorithm using the OpenCL library. In the first case study, we observed that the real biological networks were most sensitive to overexpression/state-flip and edge-addition/-reverse mutations among node-based and edgetic mutations, respectively. In the second case study, we showed that edgetic mutations can predict drug-targets better than node-based mutations. Finally, we examined the network sensitivity to double edge-removal mutations and found an interesting synergistic effect. Taken together, these findings indicate that RMut is a flexible R package to efficiently analyze network sensitivity to various types of mutations. RMut is available at https://github.com/csclab/RMut.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Models, Theoretical*
  • Mutation / genetics*
  • Software

Grants and funding

YKK: This work was supported by National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (S1106-16-1002, Development of smart RMS software for ship maintenance-based fault predictive diagnostics)(https://www.nipa.kr/eng/main.it). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.