Stepwise target controllability identifies dysregulations of macrophage networks in multiple sclerosis

Giulia Bassignana; Jennifer Fransson; Vincent Henry; Olivier Colliot; Violetta Zujovic; Fabrizio De Vico Fallani

doi:10.1162/netn_a_00180

Stepwise target controllability identifies dysregulations of macrophage networks in multiple sclerosis

Netw Neurosci. 2021 Apr 27;5(2):337-357. doi: 10.1162/netn_a_00180. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Giulia Bassignana¹, Jennifer Fransson¹, Vincent Henry¹, Olivier Colliot¹, Violetta Zujovic¹, Fabrizio De Vico Fallani¹

Affiliation

¹ Sorbonne University, UPMC Univ Paris 06, Inserm U-1127, CNRS UMR-7225, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière, Hopital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France.

Abstract

Identifying the nodes able to drive the state of a network is crucial to understand, and eventually control, biological systems. Despite recent advances, such identification remains difficult because of the huge number of equivalent controllable configurations, even in relatively simple networks. Based on the evidence that in many applications it is essential to test the ability of individual nodes to control a specific target subset, we develop a fast and principled method to identify controllable driver-target configurations in sparse and directed networks. We demonstrate our approach on simulated networks and experimental gene networks to characterize macrophage dysregulation in human subjects with multiple sclerosis.

Keywords: Molecular networks; Multiple sclerosis; Network controllability; Neural disease.