Evidence map›Paper›PMID 24266983›Full record

ArticleBMC bioinformatics2013

Reverse causal reasoning: applying qualitative causal knowledge to the interpretation of high-throughput data.

Natalie L Catlett, Anthony J Bargnesi, Stephen Ungerer, Toby Seagaran, William Ladd, Keith O Elliston, Dexter Pratt

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMC bioinformatics, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
54citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

54 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
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  11. LINPS: a database for cancer-cell-specific perturbations of biological networks.Database : the journal of biological databases and curation · 2021
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  17. Non-Coding RNAs in the Brain-Heart Axis: The Case of Parkinson's Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020
    Review
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  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Natalie L CatlettSelventa, One Alewife Center, Cambridge, MA 02140, USA. ncatlett@selventa.com.
Anthony J Bargnesi
Stephen Ungerer
Toby Seagaran
William Ladd
Keith O Elliston
Dexter Pratt

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundGene expression profiling and other genome-scale measurement technologies provide comprehensive information about molecular changes resulting from a chemical or genetic perturbation, or disease state. A critical challenge is the development of methods to interpret these large-scale data sets to identify specific biological mechanisms that can provide experimentally verifiable hypotheses and lead to the understanding of disease and drug action.

resultsWe present a detailed description of Reverse Causal Reasoning (RCR), a reverse engineering methodology to infer mechanistic hypotheses from molecular profiling data. This methodology requires prior knowledge in the form of small networks that causally link a key upstream controller node representing a biological mechanism to downstream measurable quantities. These small directed networks are generated from a knowledge base of literature-curated qualitative biological cause-and-effect relationships expressed as a network. The small mechanism networks are evaluated as hypotheses to explain observed differential measurements. We provide a simple implementation of this methodology, Whistle, specifically geared towards the analysis of gene expression data and using prior knowledge expressed in Biological Expression Language (BEL). We present the Whistle analyses for three transcriptomic data sets using a publically available knowledge base. The mechanisms inferred by Whistle are consistent with the expected biology for each data set.

conclusionsReverse Causal Reasoning yields mechanistic insights to the interpretation of gene expression profiling data that are distinct from and complementary to the results of analyses using ontology or pathway gene sets. This reverse engineering algorithm provides an evidence-driven approach to the development of models of disease, drug action, and drug toxicity.

Indexed as

Knowledge BasesAlgorithmsAnimalsBreastEndothelium, VascularEpithelial CellsGene Expression ProfilingGenome, HumanHigh-Throughput Nucleotide SequencingHistone-Lysine N-MethyltransferaseHumansInsulin ResistanceMiceMicroarray AnalysisMolecular ProbesNuclear ProteinsHistone-Lysine N-MethyltransferaseMolecular ProbesNSD3 protein, humanNuclear Proteins

Identifiers

PMID24266983
PMCPMC4222496

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.