Multi-omics assessment of dilated cardiomyopathy using non-negative matrix factorization

PLoS One. 2022 Aug 18;17(8):e0272093. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272093. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a myocardial disease, is heterogeneous and often results in heart failure and sudden cardiac death. Unavailability of cardiac tissue has hindered the comprehensive exploration of gene regulatory networks and nodal players in DCM. In this study, we carried out integrated analysis of transcriptome and methylome data using non-negative matrix factorization from a cohort of DCM patients to uncover underlying latent factors and covarying features between whole-transcriptome and epigenome omics datasets from tissue biopsies of living patients. DNA methylation data from Infinium HM450 and mRNA Illumina sequencing of n = 33 DCM and n = 24 control probands were filtered, analyzed and used as input for matrix factorization using R NMF package. Mann-Whitney U test showed 4 out of 5 latent factors are significantly different between DCM and control probands (P<0.05). Characterization of top 10% features driving each latent factor showed a significant enrichment of biological processes known to be involved in DCM pathogenesis, including immune response (P = 3.97E-21), nucleic acid binding (P = 1.42E-18), extracellular matrix (P = 9.23E-14) and myofibrillar structure (P = 8.46E-12). Correlation network analysis revealed interaction of important sarcomeric genes like Nebulin, Tropomyosin alpha-3 and ERC-protein 2 with CpG methylation of ATPase Phospholipid Transporting 11A0, Solute Carrier Family 12 Member 7 and Leucine Rich Repeat Containing 14B, all with significant P values associated with correlation coefficients >0.7. Using matrix factorization, multi-omics data derived from human tissue samples can be integrated and novel interactions can be identified. Hypothesis generating nature of such analysis could help to better understand the pathophysiology of complex traits such as DCM.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cardiomyopathy, Dilated*
  • DNA Methylation / genetics
  • Heart
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Sarcomeres / metabolism

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (CaRNAtion, FKZ 031L0075B, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/federal- government/ministries/federal-ministry-of-education), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG ME 3859/4-1 and CRC1550), the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): DZHK (“Deutsches Zentrum für Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung”—German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), Informatics for Life (Klaus Tschira Foundation), and the MWK project “Personalisierte Gentherapie und -diagnostik angeborener und erworbener Herzmuskelschwäche” (32-5400/58/3), the LEDUQC network CASTT, and the Else Kröner Exzellenzstipendium awarded to Benjamin Meder. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.