Predictive network modeling of the high-resolution dynamic plant transcriptome in response to nitrate.

Abstract

Nitrate, acting as both a nitrogen source and a signaling molecule, controls many aspects of plant development. However, gene networks involved in plant adaptation to fluctuating nitrate environments have not yet been identified.
Here we use time-series transcriptome data to decipher gene relationships and consequently to build core regulatory networks involved in Arabidopsis root adaptation to nitrate provision. The experimental approach has been to monitor genome-wide responses to nitrate at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 20 minutes using Affymetrix ATH1 gene chips. This high-resolution time course analysis demonstrated that the previously known primary nitrate response is actually preceded by a very fast gene expression modulation, involving genes and functions needed to prepare plants to use or reduce nitrate. A state-space model inferred from this microarray time-series data successfully predicts gene behavior in unlearnt conditions.
The experiments and methods allow us to propose a temporal working model for nitrate-driven gene networks. This network model is tested both in silico and experimentally. For example, the over-expression of a predicted gene hub encoding a transcription factor induced early in the cascade indeed leads to the modification of the kinetic nitrate response of sentinel genes such as NIR, NIA2, and NRT1.1, and several other transcription factors. The potential nitrate/hormone connections implicated by this time-series data are also evaluated.

Full text

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RESEARCH Open Access
Predictive network modeling of the high-
resolution dynamic plant transcriptome in
response to nitrate
Gabriel Krouk1,2, Piotr Mirowski3, Yann LeCun3, Dennis E Shasha3, Gloria M Coruzzi1*
Abstract
Background: Nitrate, acting as both a nitrogen source and a signaling molecule, controls many aspects of plant
development. However, gene networks involved in plant adaptation to fluctuating nitrate environments have not
yet been identified.
Results: Here we use time-series transcriptome data to decipher gene relationships and consequently to build
core regulatory networks involved in Arabidopsis root adaptation to nitrate provision. The experimental approach
has been to monitor genome-wide responses to nitrate at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 20 minutes using Affymetrix ATH1
gene chips. This high-resolution time course analysis demonstrated that the previously known primary nitrate
response is actually preceded by a very fast gene expression modulation, involving genes and functions needed to
prepare plants to use or reduce nitrate. A state-space model inferred from this microarray time-series data
successfully predicts gene behavior in unlearnt conditions.
Conclusions: The experiments and methods allow us to propose a temporal working model for nitrate-driven
gene networks. This network model is tested both in silico and experimentally. For example, the over-expression of
a predicted gene hub encoding a transcription factor induced early in the cascade indeed leads to the
modification of the kinetic nitrate response of sentinel genes such as NIR, NIA2, and NRT1.1, and several other
transcription factors. The potential nitrate/hormone connections implicated by this time-series data are also
evaluated.
Background
Higher plants, which constitute a main entry of nitrogen
in to the food chain, acquire nitrogen mainly as nitrate
(NO3-). Soil concentrations of this mineral ion can fluc-
tuate dramatically in the rhizosphere, often resulting in
limited growth and yield [1]. Thus, understanding plant
adaptation to fluctuating nitrogen levels in the soil is a
challenging task with potential consequences for health,
the environment, and economies [2-4].
The first genomic studies on NO3-responses in plants
were published 10 years ago [5]. To date, data monitor-
ing gene expression in response to NO3-provision from
more than 100 Affymetrix ATH1 chips have been
published [5-12]. Meta-analysis of microarray data sets
from several different labs demonstrated that at least a
tenth of the genome can potentially be regulated by
nitrogen provision, depending on the context [2,9,13,14].
Despite these extensive efforts of characterization, only
a limited number of molecular actors that alter NO3--
induced gene regulation have been identified so far. The
first molecular actor identified is NRT1.1, a dual affinity
NO3-transporter that has recently been proposed to
also participate in a NO3--sensing system by several
studies from different laboratories. A mutation in the
NRT1.1 gene has been shown to alter plant responses to
NO3-provision by changing lateral root development in
NO3--rich patches of soil [15,16] and to affect control
of gene expression [17-20]. Additionally, mutations in
the genes CIPK8 and CIPK23, encoding kinases, the
NIN-like protein gene NLP7, and the LBD37/38/39
genes have been shown to alter induction of downstream
* Correspondence: gloria.coruzzi@nyu.edu
1Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, Department of Biology, New
York University, 100 Washington Square East, 1009 Main Building, New York,
NY 10003, USA
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Krouk et al. Genome Biology 2010, 11:R123
http://genomebiology.com/content/11/12/R123
© 2010 Krouk et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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genes by NO3-[20-23]. Other regulatory proteins have
been shown to control plant development in response to
NO3-provision (such as ANR1 for lateral root develop-
ment), but no evidence has so far demonstrated their role
in the control of gene expression in response to NO3-
provision [24]. Importantly, the downstream networks of
genes affected by such regulatory proteins have not been
identified.
In this study, our aim is to provide a systems-wide
view of NO3-signal propagation through dynamic regu-
latory gene networks. To do so, we generated a high-
resolution dynamic NO3-transcriptome from plants
treated with nitrate from 0 to 20 minutes, and modeled
the resulting sequence using a dynamical model. Instead
of learning the dynamics directly from the gene expres-
sion sequence, we took into account uncertainty and
acquisition errors, and used a state-space model (SSM).
The latter defined the observed gene expression time
series (denoted as y(t)) as being generated by a hidden
‘true’ sequence of gene expressions z(t). This approach
enabled us to both incorporate uncertainty about the
measured mRNA and model the gene regulation net-
work by simple linear dynamics on the hidden variables
x(t) (so-called ‘states’), thus reducing the number of
(unknown) free parameters and the associated risk of
over-fitting the observed data. We used a specific
machine learning algorithm known as ‘dynamical factor
graphs’ [25] with an additional sparsity constraint on
the gene regulation network. Interestingly, the coher-
ence of the generated regulatory model is good enough
that it is able to predict the direction of gene change
(up-regulation or down-regulation) on future data
points. This coherence allows us to propose a gene
influence network involving transcription factors and
‘sentinel genes’ involved in the primary NO3-response
(such as NO3-transporters or NO3-assimilation genes).
The role of a predicted hub in this network is evaluated
by over-expressing it, and indeed leads to changes in the
NO3--driven gene expression of sentinel genes. The
initial gene response to NO3-is also analyzed and dis-
cussed for its insights into molecular physiology.
Results and discussion
Molecular physiology: assessing molecular
reprogramming preceding the ‘primary’ nitrate response
To investigate genomic responses that precede the
response of sentinel ‘primary NO3-response’ genes
(NIR, NRT2.1, NIA1, NIR1) to nitrate application, we
first generated several time-series experiments (data not
shown). These allowed us to identify the earliest time at
which we were able to detect unambiguous NO3-induc-
tion of these sentinel response genes using real time
quantitative PCR (RT-QPCR). Figure 1a shows the
expression of selected sentinel genes over time (0, 3, 6,
9, 12, 15, 20, 25, 35, 45, 60 minutes) in response to
treatment with 1 mM KNO3or controls of 1 mM KCl.
These results (Figure 1a) demonstrate that a sentinel
gene such as NRT1.1 is induced at 20 minutes (com-
pared to KCl controls, and in comparison to gene
expression at time 0 minutes). The timing of induction
of other sentinel genes involved in the ‘primary NO3-
response’ are NIR1 at 12 minutes and NRT2.1 and NIA1
at 15 minutes. Following these preliminary experiments,
we next ran Affymetrix ATH1 chips on biological repli-
cates corresponding to the beginning of sentinel gene
induction and their preceding time points (0, 3, 6, 9, 12,
15, 20 minutes). Note that we kept the 20-minute time
point as a reference, since it was the earliest time point
that had previously been studied [6].
The resulting nitrate-responsive transcriptome kinetic
dataset corresponded to 26 ATH1 chips with 22,810
probes each. A sequential analysis involving linear mod-
eling (detailed in Materials and methods) was carried
out to identify genes regulated at each particular time
point with highly stringent criteria (including control of
the false discovery rate (FDR)). We detected 83, 192, 55,
149, 190, and 229 genes significantly regulated by nitrate
treatment at the 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 20 minute time
points, respectively (Additional file 1). The union of
these gene lists corresponds to 550 distinct nitrate-
responsive genes. We demonstrate that a large majority
of the newly identified NO3--regulated genes are con-
trolled at the earliest time points (3 and 6 minutes),
which have never before been assayed (Figure 1b). In
order to support these new findings, 15 genes have been
validated by QPCR (Additional file 2) on three replicates
(two were used for the microarray chips and one for
QPCR only). The predicted behaviors of these genes
were validated by the QPCR approach, as follows. One
set of genes is shown to have a transient response to
NO3-(for example, At1g55120, At3g50750, At1g64370,
At4g16780, At1g27900, At1g22640, At1g52060, and
At2g42200). While a second gene set is validated to be
very early responsive genes (for example, At1g13300,
At1g49000,At4g31910,
At3g25790, and At5g65210). Quantitatively, the correla-
tion between the NO3-induction (KNO3/KCl ratio)
detected by both approaches (ATH1 chip and QPCR) is
R2> 0.5 for 8 genes, 0.5 > R2> 0.4 for 3 genes, R2< 0.4
for 4 genes. It is noteworthy that for the genes having a
low correlation, their overall behavior is validated by
QPCR (for example, constant versus transient induction
by NO3-; Figure 2b; Additional file 2).
To probe the biological significance of these kinetic
patterns of nitrate regulation of gene expression, we
determined the functional categories that are over-repre-
sented in the lists of nitrate-regulated genes at each time
point, separating the induced and repressed gene lists
At5g15830,At2g27830,
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20 12 15 9 3 6
min
Log 2 (KNO3 / KCl)
>2
<2
1
0 50 100
3min
6min
9min
12min
15min
20min
% of new regulated genes
when compared to Wang et al; 2003
(a)
(c)
mRNA level
NIA1
KNO3
KCl
Time (min)
15min
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
NIR1
12min
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
0
1
2
3
4
NRT1.1
20min
0
1
2
3
4
NRT2.1
15min
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
transcriptome
measurements
(b)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Affy Signal Affy Signal
Affy Signal Affy Signal
Figure 1 High-resolution kinetics of transcriptome responses to NO3-treatment. (a) Levels of mRNA for nitrogen-responsive sentinel genes
in Arabidopsis roots in response to NO3-treatment. Fourteen-day-old plants grown in the presence of ammonium succinate were treated with
1 mM KNO3or KCL (as a mock treatment). Plants were collected at 0 minutes (before treatment) and 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 20, 25, 35, 45, and 60
minutes after treatment. Sentinel transcripts were measured in RNA from roots using RT-QPCR and normalized to two housekeeping genes (see
Materials and methods). The insets show the Affymetrix MAS5 normalized signal for the sentinel genes on the 0- to 20-minute samples. The data
represent the mean ± standard error of three and two biological replicates for QPCR and Affymetrix measurements, respectively. (b) Percentage
of genes not detected as NO3-regulated in Wang et al. [6]. (c) Overall behavior (relative expression) of 550 regulated genes (Log base 2(Signal
KNO3/Signal KCl)) between 0 and 20 minutes. These data correspond to ATH1 measurement of the samples collected for the RT-PCR presented
in (a) (grey shades; see also Materials and methods for further details).
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>2
<2
1
Log 2 (KNO3 / KCl)
1
2 3
4
5
6
7 8
9
10
11
12 13
14
15
16
17 18
19
20
6
Time (min)
12 9 20 15 6 3
12 9 20 15 6 3
12 9 20 15 6 3
12 9 20 15 6 3
12 9 20 15 3
(b)
(a)
6 min
12 min
mRNA levels
Transitory response
Early response
Late response
Figure 2 Clustering analysis and QPCR reveals different patterns of expression in response to short-term NO3-treatment. (a) Cluster
analysis of the relative expression of 550 regulated genes (Log base 2(Signal KNO3/Signal KCl)) between 0 and 20 minutes. These data
correspond to ATH1 measurement of the samples collected for the RT-PCR shown in Figure 1 (see Materials and methods for further details). For
clusters including genes with a significant over-representation of biological functions see Additional file 4. (b) Examples of three different gene
behaviors (transitory, early, late responses) after NO3-provision.
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(Additional file 2). Interestingly, the biological functions
induced earliest after nitrate addition do not concern
nitrogen directly. Instead, within 3 minutes, the very first
statistically significant over-represented functional cate-
gory is ribosomal proteins (P-value 6.58e-6). This finding
generates the hypothesis that nitrogen could trigger a
transient and very rapid reprogramming of key elements
of the translation machinery needed to synthesize new
proteins required for nitrogen acquisition. This idea
might be further supported by the fact that many more
genes are induced by the addition of nitrate than are
repressed (see below). Moreover, later on in the
time-course (as early as 9 minutes), the next biological
function to be significantly induced is the oxidative pen-
tose-phosphate-pathway, a function that is known to be a
critical step providing reductants needed to assimilate
NO3-[26]. The oxidative pentose-phosphate-pathway has
also been shown to generate a signal controlling key
effectors of the NO3-response, such as NRT2.1, NRT2.4,
NRT1.1, NRT1.5, and AMT1.3 [27]. Taken together,
these observations suggest that the early nitrate response
involves mechanisms needed to prepare the plant to
respond to nitrate rather than mechanisms that relate
directly to nitrogen. Such mechanisms - for example,
nitrate transport and amino acid metabolism - are regu-
lated later on in the time series (Additional file 3).
To begin to decipher the pattern of nitrate-regulated
gene expression over the entire time series, we first clus-
tered the gene expression ratio (Log2(Signal KNO3/Sig-
nal KCl) of the 550 significantly regulated genes) in
order to gain insight into the genomic reprogramming
during the first 20 minutes of KNO3treatment (Figure
1c). The vast majority of the reprogramming is an
induction of gene expression by NO3-, rather than a
repression. To quantify this observation, the numbers of
genes that are detected as significantly induced by NO3-
at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 20 minutes are 63 (76% of regu-
lated genes), 146 (76% of regulated genes), 54 (98% of
regulated genes), 123 (82% of regulated genes), 164 (87%
of regulated genes), and 209 (92% of regulated genes),
respectively. One interpretation is that NO3-induces an
adaptation program that is on ‘stand-by’ in NO3--free
conditions, rather than a shut-down of a putative
‘N-free-condition’ program. Clustering analysis also
allowed us to sort gene responses according to their
overall behavior. This analysis demonstrated that rapid
gene expression responses to nitrate could be classified
into up to 20 clusters (according to figure of merit
(FOM) analysis; see Materials and methods; Figure 2).
Considering each cluster independently, we were able to
identify over-represented biological functions for eight
clusters, including chloroplast, the oxidative pentose-
phosphate-pathway, and ribosomal proteins (Figure 2;
see Additional file 4 for details).
Moreover, we identified and analyzed 146 genes that
were consistently induced over the 20 minutes of nitrate
treatment (corresponding to clusters 1, 9, 11, 13, and
14). This group of consistently nitrate-induced genes
includes over-represented biological functions such as
oxidoreduction coenzyme process (P-value = 0.00027),
nicotinamide metabolic process (P-value = 6.50e-05),
regulation of transcription (P-value = 0.00167), pentose
phosphate shunt (P-value = 0.00073). We also identified
219 genes showing responses to nitrate that seem to
represent a general pattern of transient regulation (clus-
ters 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 16, 17, and 18). Interestingly,
the oxygen and redox state of the cell seems to be a
general function that is transiently adapted by KNO3
treatment. Indeed, Munich Information Center for Pro-
tein Sequence (MIPS) functions such as oxygen radical
detoxification (P-value = 0.00018), peroxidase reaction
(P-value = 0.01479), and superoxide metabolism
(P-value = 0.02472) are over-represented gene ontology
terms in this group. This observation might indicate the
effect of NO3-on the redox state of the cell. Finally, we
show that 124 genes are repressed by NO3-treatment,
transiently or otherwise (corresponding to clusters 5, 19,
and 20). The common function overrepresented in this
group is transcription (P-value = 0.00312). This could
result from the extinction of the pre-existing transcrip-
tome program preceding the NO3-treatment. Since the
plants had been nitrogen starved for 24 hours before
NO3-treatment, this might correspond to genes that are
up-regulated by the pre-treatment (nitrogen starvation)
and down-regulated by NO3-provision. To statistically
test this hypothesis, we set up a randomization test (see
Materials and methods) to quantify whether the genes
that are down-regulated in our conditions correspond to
genes that were up-regulated by nitrogen starvation in
Peng et al. [28]; this occurred with a P-value of 0.0089.
Conversely, no significant overlap was detected for
clusters induced bi NO3-(clusters 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 13,
14). This finding validates the idea that NO3--down-
regulated clusters correspond to genes involved in the
response of plants to the pre-treatment conditions. In
summary, a large part of the NO3-gene expression
reprogramming has been missed by previous genomic
studies. The time-varying expression modulation newly
identified here involves physiological functions that
could be components of the nitrate signaling system
itself.
In order to further document the potential of this
dynamic transcriptome response to mediate cross-talk
between nitrate signaling and other well-studied signal-
ing pathways in plants, we evaluated if the gene sets
regulated by NO3-at the different time points in our
analysis overlap more than expected by chance with
genes regulated by hormones using data generated by
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the Chory lab [29]. To do this, we compared the nitrate-
regulated gene lists (over six time points) with the lists
of hormone-regulated genes [29] and generated a matrix
that assembled the randomization test P-values (see
Materials and methods) between each pair of gene lists.
The lists included genes regulated by NO3-across each
of the six time points (our study), and lists of genes
regulated by seven different hormones by the Chory lab
(abscisic acid, cytokinins, auxin (IAA), methyl jasmo-
nate, brassinolides, gibberellic acid, ethylene)] [29].
These results (Figure 3) lead to three main conclusions
supporting the existence of gene modules responding to
nitrate and hormone signaling.
First, we considered only the overlap between the
NO3--responsive gene lists at different time points. We
found evidence for two linked ‘modules’ of nitrate-regu-
lated gene expression (modules 1 and 2 in Figure 3b).
The first nitrate-regulated module consists of the
nitrate-regulated genes in the union of the 3- and
6-minute gene lists. The overlap between these two lists
is far beyond what we would expect by chance (P-value
< 0.001). However, the 3-minute gene list overlaps very
little with the rest of the nitrate-regulated genes in the
time-course study. As such, the second nitrate-regulated
module is made up of the union of the 6-, 9-, 12-, 15-,
and 20-minute gene lists (these gene lists overlap signifi-
cantly more than random). The 6-minute gene list acts
as the link between the very early nitrate-response genes
(before 6 minutes) and the more delayed ones (after
6 minutes).
Second, the overlap of the nitrate-regulated genes with
the hormone-regulated genes (modules 3 and 4 in
Figure 3b) is significantly higher than expected at the
9-minute nitrate time point for abscisic acid-, indole
this work
Nemhauser
et al 2006
# genes in
# genes in
Each gene list
Above the diagonal:
Size of the overlap
6min
3min
12min
9min
20min
15min
ABA
IAA
BL MJ
CK
NO3- response
Module 2
Module 2
Module 4
(b)
(a)
Below the diagonal:
Randomization test p-value.
Module 1
Module 3
Figure 3 Identification of NO3-response and hormonal cross-talk modules. (a) For each pair of gene lists (NO3-responsive (this work) or
hormone responsive [29]), a P-value (randomization test; see Materials and methods) was computed and is shown in the table below the blue
diagonal. Entries in the blue diagonal give the gene list size in number of genes. Above the diagonal the size of the intersection of each pair of
studied gene lists is given. Note that P-value = 0 means P-value < 0.001. Analysis of the P-values included within the yellow outline led to the
building of gene modules depicted in the conceptual model provided in (b). ABA, absisic acid; ACC, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic-acid
(ethylene precursor); BL, brassinolides; CK, cytokinins; GA, gibberellic acid; IAA, indole acetic acid (auxin); MJ, methyl jasmonate.
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acetic acid-, brassinolide- and methyl jasmonate-regu-
lated genes, while the 12-minute nitrate time point over-
laps significantly with cytokinin-regulated genes. This
suggests that the interaction of nitrate signaling with
other hormone signals is likely to involve the genes
regulated by nitrate after 9 minutes. This leads to the
hypothesis that, from 0 to 6 minutes, the genomic
reprogramming concerns a pure NO3-signaling path-
way, and thereafter (for example, 9 minutes after nitrate
treatment) interactions with developmental signals such
as hormones occur (Figure 3). This enables us to derive
the hypothesis that the early nitrate controllers (for
example, transcription factors, kinases, and so on) regu-
lated at 3, 6, and 9 minutes are involved in the control
of the nitrate signaling itself, rather than in the interac-
tion between NO3-and other signals such as hormones.
Third, this analysis shows that the different hormonal
treatments control largely overlapping gene modules, as
has been described previously [29].
In conclusion, connections between NO3-and hormone-
related signaling are common features of plant molecular
networks at several layers of integration (for a review, see
[30]). For instance, transcriptional connections have been
identified where genes involved in a NO3--responsive ‘bio-
module’ have been shown to be more responsive to NO3-
if they are also strongly regulated by hormones [13]. More
recently, we provided a mechanistic hypothesis to explain
the role of NRT1.1 as a NO3-sensor controlling lateral
root development. Indeed, NRT1.1 is a transceptor able to
transport both auxin and nitrate. The sensing mechanism
results from the ability of nitrate to inhibit auxin transport
by NRT1.1, leading to low lateral root development at low
nitrate concentrations [16]. To determine whether this
mechanism is also involved in the transcriptional induc-
tion studied in the present work will require further inves-
tigation. However, the fact that hormones can be involved
at the beginning of NO3-sensing mechanisms [13,16] and
downstream of NO3-transcriptional activation (this analy-
sis) is an intriguing observation that deserves further
investigation to understand what is the purpose of such
signal entanglement.
Machine learning approach: modeling of regulatory gene
influences through predictive models
Dynamical predictive modeling of regulatory gene networks
Time-series datasets of gene expression levels, as mea-
sured by microarrays, can provide us with a detailed pic-
ture of the behavior of the genetic network over time,
but they contain this information in a highly noisy form
requiring reverse engineering [31]. An additional chal-
lenge of systems biology is to be able to model systems
precisely enough that they can predict untested condi-
tions, especially given the paucity of data relative to the
number of possible connections.
Among the several approaches to this modeling
problem, dynamical models have gained prominence as
they simultaneously encode the topology of the gene
interaction graph and its functional evolution model.
Such a model can in turn be used for predictive model-
ing of gene expression at later time points or upon
perturbation. Such dynamical models essentially consist
of a mathematical function that governs the transitions
of the state of a gene regulatory network over time.
Typically, dynamical models of mRNA concentrations
consist of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) [31].
For a given gene i, ODEs can, for instance, define the
rate of change of mRNA concentration yi(t) (with a
kinetic constant τ), as a function giof the influences of
transcription factors (which we assume in this article to
consist of the vectors y(t) of all observed mRNA
measures, because protein levels are unavailable to us),
with an optional mRNA’s degradation term, as in the
equation below:
d
d
y t
i
t
gt y t
ii
( )
( ( ))
y
( )
=−
In our study, we have considered dynamics with the
mRNA degradation term (the so-called ‘kinetic’ model
[32,33]) and without it (the so-called ‘Brownian motion’
model [34]). Assuming degradation (kinetic ODE)
worked better.
Since microarray data are discretely sampled over
time, the above equation is linearized; hence, it explains
how gene expressions at time t influence gene expres-
sions at time t + 1.
In our study, the sequence of microarrays contained
seven full-genome mRNA measures (with two replicates)
at 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 20 minutes; in the cross-valida-
tion leave-out-last study, we used measures between 0
and 15 minutes to fit the model for each gene i (by tun-
ing the parameters of associated dynamical functions),
and tested the fitted model on the last time point (pre-
diction of the mRNA level at 20 minutes).
Choosing the model
In a review article, Jaeger and Monk [31] pointed out
that the inference of biological networks in the presence
of few time-point measurements, many genes, measure-
ment errors and random fluctuations in the environ-
ment is inherently difficult. Because of this limitation,
methods for computational inference of gene regulation
networks can be crudely divided into two approaches:
non-linear or state-space based modeling of the complex
interactions between a restricted number of genes (typi-
cally ten) with hidden protein transcription factors; or
simpler, but linear, models of transcription factor-gene
interactions [32-35], relying on larger (hundreds to
thousands) numbers of microarray measurements.
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State-space models (SSM) are a general category of
machine learning algorithms that model the dynamics of
a sequence of data by encoding the joint likelihood of
observed and hidden variables. A popular probabilistic
example of SSMs that have been applied to gene expres-
sion data are dynamical bayesian networks [36], such as
linear dynamical systems [37,38]. SSMs assume an
observed sequence y(t) (in our case, gene expression
data) to be generated from an underlying unknown
sequence z(t), also called ‘hidden states’. Consecutive hid-
den states form a Markov chain {z(0), z(1), ..., z(T-2), z
(T-1)} (in our case, the sequence contains seven states at
0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 20 minutes); each transition in the
chain corresponds to the same stationary (that is, time
invariant) dynamical model f.
As a first example of complex SSMs, Zhang et al. used
gaussian processes dynamical models with nonlinear
dynamics to infer the profile of a single transcription factor
(the tumor suppressor p53) and explained the activity of a
large collection of genes using that transcription factor
only (without any other transcription factor-gene interac-
tion) [39]. Another example is the linear dynamical system,
which Beal et al. [37] as well as Angus et al. [38] used to
infer the profiles of 14 hidden transcription factors for 10
observed genes only, either without predictive cross-valida-
tion [37], or on synthetically generated data [38].
Examples of first-order linear dynamical models for
gene expression include the Inferelator by Bonneau et al.
[32,33]. The Inferelator consists of a kinetic ODE that
follows the Wahde and Hertz equation [40] and where
transcription factors contribute linearly. This ODE also
includes an mRNA degradation term. Some instances of
the Inferelator introduce nonlinear AND, OR and XOR
relationships between pairs of genes, based on a previous
bi-clustering of genes. One has to note that the Inferela-
tor has been mostly applied to datasets with hundreds of
data-points (for example, Halobacterium).
Other examples include the first-order vector autoregres-
sive model VAR(1) [35] and the ‘Brownian motion’ model
(which is a VAR(1) model of changes in mRNA concentra-
tion) [34]. Lozano et al. [41] suggested using a dynamic
dependency on the past 2, 3, or 4 time points, but this was
impractical in our case given the relatively small number of
microarray measurements in our experiments.
Two microarray replicates were acquired in this study.
Since each replicate is independent of all microarrays
preceding and following in time, there were four possi-
ble transitions between any two time points t and t + 1,
and we therefore used four replicate sequences to train
the machine learning algorithm.
A noise reduction approach to state-space modeling of
regulatory gene networks
In a departure from previous SSM frameworks, our
noise-reduction approach uses the hidden variables to
represent an idealized, ‘true’ sequence of gene expres-
sions z(t) that would be measured if there were no
noise. The set of all genes at time t is modeled by a
‘latent’ (that is, hidden but correct) variable (denoted
z(t)), about which noisy observations y(t) are made.
Specifically, we a) model the dynamics on hidden
states z(t) instead of modeling them directly on the
Affymetrix data y(t), as well as b) have the hidden
sequence z(t) generate the actual observed sequence y(t)
of mRNA, while incorporating measurement uncer-
tainty. Such an approach has been used in robotics to
cope with errors coming from sensors. Our proposed
SSM is depicted in Figure 4a, where each node y(t) or
z(t) represents a vector of all gene expressions at a par-
ticular time point, and where latent variables are repre-
sented by large red circles, and observed variables by
large black circles.
Our goal is to learn the function f that determines the
change in expression of a target gene zj, as a linear com-
bination of the expression of a relatively small number
of transcription factors, and that relates the values of
latent variables z(t) and z(t + 1) corresponding to conse-
cutive time measurements (function f is represented by a
red square in Figure 4a). The relationship between latent
and observed variables is assumed to be the identity
function h with added Gaussian noise (represented by a
black square in Figure 4a).
The function f is modeled as a linear dynamical sys-
tem (that is, a matrix F). This linear Markovian model,
which represents a kinetic (RNA degrades) or Brow-
nian motion (RNA does not degrade) ODE, is the sim-
plest and requires the fewest parameters (there is one
parameter per transcription factor-gene interaction,
and an additional offset for each target gene). This
model thus helps to avoid over-fitting scarce gene data.
The linear model operates on hidden variables, which
become a smoothed version of the observed gene
expression data.
Because our noise reduction state-space modeling
algorithm is efficient, simple and tractable, as explained
in the Materials and methods section, it can handle lar-
ger numbers of genes (we focused on 76 genes) than
other SSM approaches, given enough genes [37-39].
Comparative study of state-space model optimization
Out of the 550 nitrogen-regulated genes, we extracted
67 genes that correspond to all the predicted transcrip-
tion factors and 9 N-regulated target genes that belong
to the primary nitrogen assimilation pathway. The tran-
scription factors have been used as explanatory variables
(inputs to f) as well as explained values (output from f)
(Figure 4b), whereas the nitrogen assimilation target
genes are only explained values. We then optimized our
SSM, using different algorithms, in order to fit it to the
observed data matrix, and compare all our results in
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(b)
Regulators (IN)
Regulated (OUT)
Sentinels
Level of influence
SPL9 as a
controlled gene
Z(t+n)
Observation
model g
Y(t+1) Y(t+n) Y(t) Y(t+2)
Z(t)
Z(t+1)
Z(t+1)
dynamic
model f
(a)
SPL9 as a controller
Diagonal: Self-influences
Figure 4 State space modeling predicts transcription factor influence. (a) Conceptual scheme of the state space modeling. An unknown
function f (red square) relates the values of latent variables Z(t) and Z(t + 1) (for all t) corresponding to consecutive time measurements.
Learning algorithms iteratively optimize the function f mapping latent values of transcription factors to changes to target genes (and
transcription factors themselves at time t + 1). (b) The whole dataset (from 0 to 20 minutes of KNO3treatment) has been learnt by state space
modeling (validated to be predictive in a leave-one-last approach; Table 2). The resulting f function has learnt possible connections and can be
displayed as an influence matrix. SPL9 is a transcription factor predicted to be a potential bottleneck and is further experimentally studied.
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Table 1. We also compared our SSM approach to non-
SSM approaches [32-35,42,43] (Table 2).
Iterative learning algorithms, described in this study,
alternate between two steps: learning the function f
mapping latent values of transcription factors at time t
to changes to target genes (and transcription factors
themselves) at time t + 1; and recomputing (inferring)
the values of the latent variables. In the first step, learn-
ing the function f corresponds to finding parameters of
F that minimize the prediction error and that involve
few transcription factors, thanks to a sparsity constraint
on F. In the second step, the sum of quadratic errors on
functions f and g is minimized with respect to latent
variables z(t) by gradient descent in the hidden variable
space [25]. The learning procedure is repeated (learning
model parameters, inferring latent variables) on training
data until F stabilizes (see Materials and methods).
Using a bootstrapping approach based on random initia-
lization of latent variables z(t), we further repeat the
SSM iterative procedure 20 times and take the final
average network F (see Materials and methods).
Three hyper-parameters were explored in our learning
experiments: the kinetic time constant τ (unless the
ODE was ‘Brownian motion’), the amount of L1-norm
Table 1 The kinetic ODE and both the conjugate gradient and LARS optimization algorithms obtain the best fit to the
0 to 15 minutes data, with good leave-out-last predictions
Best hyperparameters (with respect to SNR on
leave-1 training dataset)
DynamicsNormalization OptimizationGamma (state-
space
coefficient)constant)
Performed on
training set:
SNR (in dB) on
leave-1 training
dataset
Performed on test set:
Tau (kinetic
time
Lambda
(regularization
parameter)
percentage of correct
signs on leave-1 test
dataset
Kinetic
Kinetic
Kinetic
Brownian
Brownian
Brownian
Naïve
trend
prediction
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
Gradient
LARS
Elastic Nets
Gradient
LARS
Elastic Nets
13
3
7
0.0001
0.1
0.05
0.0001
0.05
0.05
NA
32.4
32.4
32.2
32.1
32.1
32.1
NA
68%
74%
71%
65%
63%
63%
52%
0.1
0.1
0.1
0
0
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
Each line in the table represents the type of ODE for the dynamical model of transcription factor-gene regulation (either kinetic, with mRNA degradation, or
‘Brownian motion’, without mRNA degradation), the type of microarray data normalization, and the optimization algorithm for learning the parameters of the
dynamical model. For each of these, we selected the best hyperparameters, namely the state-space coefficient gamma, the kinetic time constant (in minutes) and
the parameter regularization coefficient lambda, based on the quality of fit to the training data (from 0 to 15 minutes), as measured by the signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR), in dB. We then performed a leave-out-last (leave-1) prediction and counted the number of times the sign of the mRNA change between 15 minutes and
20 minutes was correct. We compared these results to a naïve extrapolation (based on the trend between 12 and 15 minutes) and obtained statistically
significant results at P = 0.0145.
Table 2 The quality of fit of our state-space model approach slightly outperforms the non-SSM approaches
Best hyper parameters (with respect to
SNR on leave-1 training dataset)
Dynamics Normalization Optimization Gamma
(state-space
coefficient)time
constant)
Performed on
training set:
SNR (in dB) on
leave-1 training
dataset
Performed on test
set:
percentage of correct
signs on leave-1 test
dataset
Tau
(kinetic
Lambda
(regularization
parameter)
Reference
Kinetic
Kinetic
Kinetic
kinetic
Brownian
Brownian
Brownian
Naïve
trend
prediction
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
MAS5
Gradient
LARS
LARS
Elastic Nets
Gradient
LARS
Elastic Nets
13
3
3
3
0.0001
0.1
0.05
0.05
0.005
0.05
0.05
NA
32.4
32.4
32.1
32.1
32.1
32.1
32.1
NA
68%
74%
74%
74%
66%
63%
63%
52%
This work
This work
[33]
[35]
[34]
[34]
[34]
0.1
0
0
0
0
0
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
We compared our SSM-based technique (with a non-zero SSM parameter gamma) to previously published algorithms for learning gene regulation networks by
enforcing gamma = 0 (see Materials and methods). We notice that the LARS algorithm [42], used in the Inferelator by Bonneau et al. [32,33], as well as Elastic
Nets [35,43], obtain a slightly worse quality of fit (signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), in dB) than when combined with our state-space modeling for the same leave-out-
last (leave-1) performance as our SSM plus LARS. Not using an mRNA degradation term, as in Wang et al. [34], degrades the leave-out-last performance.
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regularization l (explained in Materials and methods),
and a variable g linked to the SSM.
When the state-space coefficient is g = 0, we can recover
non-SSM algorithms: LARS (least-angle regression and
shrinkage) [42], as used for instance by Bonneau et al.
[32,33] and Elastic Nets [43], as used, for instance, by
Shimamura et al. [35]. LARS is a fast implementation of
Tibshirani’s popular LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and
selection operator) regression with L1-norm regularization
[44]. Elastic Nets are an improvement over LARS and
LASSO, and their main advantage is to group variables (in
our case genes) as opposed to choosing one gene and leav-
ing out correlated ones. Moreover, if we do not use the
mRNA degradation term in the kinetic ODE, and use
instead ‘Brownian motion’ dynamics, and if we set the state-
space coefficient to g = 0, we recover an approach compar-
able to the one published by Wang et al. [34] (although
their optimization algorithm was based on the singular
value decomposition (SVD) of the microarray data).
For each type of ODE (kinetic or ‘Brownian motion’)
and type of optimization algorithm, we exhaustively
explored the space of hyper-parameters (τ, g, l) in order
to optimize the quality of fit of each model to the first
six time points (0, 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 minutes). We
repeated the experiment using two different ways of
normalizing microarray gene expression data: MAS5
and RMA (Robust Multi-array Average). Interestingly, it
appears that machine learning (ML) approaches better
fit MAS5 data (32.4 db) compared to RMA data (30.8
db). Thus, the study was continued on MAS5 normal-
ized data, as it was for the vast majority of the studies
that we reviewed in this work. As can be seen in
Table 1, we identified the SSM relying on the kinetic
ODE, and with either LARS or conjugate gradient opti-
mizations, as the two best (having the highest signal-to-
noise ratio) optimization algorithms on the MAS5 train-
ing datasets. The signal-to-noise ratio is a monotonic
function of the normalized mean square error on the
predicted values of mRNA; all algorithms used in this
article aim at minimizing the normalized mean square
error, that is, at maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio.
Having chosen the two best algorithms using all time
points up to and including 15 minutes as training data,
we performed a ‘leave-out-last’ test, consisting of pre-
dicting both the direction and magnitude of the change
of the gene expression states between 15 and 20 min-
utes. Using those algorithms with those parameter set-
tings, we made predictions about whether gene
expression levels would be increased (positive sign) or
decreased (negative sign) at 20 minutes compared with
at 15 minutes.
As Table 1 shows, a SSM relying on the kinetic ODE
and with LARS optimization (kinetic LARS) gives cor-
rect results 74% of the time on a set of 53 genes (47
transcription factors and 6 nitrogen assimilation genes)
that are ‘consistent’ among the two biological repli-
cates in their behavior (consistently up- or down-regu-
lated in both replicates) for the transition from 15
minutes to 20 minutes. When we considered all 76
genes, regardless of their ‘consistency’ across replicates,
kinetic LARS still gave correct results 71% of the time.
The other chosen algorithm (kinetic ODE with conju-
gate gradient optimization), yielded 68% correct results
on both the 53 consistent genes and on all 76 genes.
By contrast, a naïve ‘trend forecast’ algorithm to extra-
polate the trend between 12 minutes and 15 minutes
was correct for only 52% of the consistent genes, just
slightly better than random (this result implies that
48% of the consistent genes changed ‘direction’ at 15
minutes). Thus, our SSM does significantly better
(P-value = 0.0145) than the naïve trend forecast based
on a binomial test (see Materials and methods) on a
coin that is biased to be correct 52% of the time.
Using the hyper-parameters (τ, g, l) corresponding to
the two best solutions (kinetic LARS and kinetic conju-
gate gradient), we retrained two SSMs on all the avail-
able data (0 to 20 minutes) to obtain corresponding
gene regulatory networks. Finally, we performed a statis-
tical analysis of the bootstrap networks in order to
retain transcription factor-gene links that were
statistically significant at P = 0.001 (see Materials and
methods). We ultimately selected the conjugate gradi-
ent-optimized network as it gave a less sparse solution
(394 links) than the LARS-optimized gene regulatory
network (GRN) (22 links). We used this network (next
section) to analyze the NO3-response of sentinel genes
to transcription factors.
We are confident in dynamical modeling, and in our
SSM in particular, because in the leave-out-last tests, we
were able to learn the system well enough to predict the
direction of changes to gene expression. This suggests that
we might have learnt some consistent and biologically
meaningful networks involved in NO3-response pathway.
Since function f models the gene regulation network
learned during the leave-out-last test, we conclude by pre-
senting the function f obtained from the full time sequence
0 to 20 minutes. This function f can be displayed as an
influence matrix (Figure 4b). The study of this network/
matrix as a whole system is discussed below.
Over-expression of a potential network hub (SPL9)
modifies the NO3-response of sentinel and transcription
factor genes
In order to probe the role of a transcription factor/hub
in the predicted regulatory network presented in Figure
4b, transgenic plants (pSLP9:rSPL9) expressing an
altered version of the mRNA for the SPL9 transcription
factor were compared to wild-type plants for their
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response to NO3-provision. This gene has been selected
for several reasons: (i) it is induced at very early time
points (3 and 6 minutes); (ii) the inferred network pre-
dicts that SPL9 potentially controls at least six genes,
including two nitrogen assimilation sentinel genes - this
places it as the third-most influential transcription factor
on the nitrogen assimilation gene sentinels; (iii) it is also
the most strongly influenced gene in both its number of
‘in’ connections, and by the magnitude of the regula-
tions controlling it (Figure 4b); and (iv) SPL9 displays
some strong correlations with key regulators across the
NASC (Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre) array
dataset (see below). As such, SPL9 constitutes a poten-
tial crucial bottleneck in the flux of information
mediated by the proposed nitrogen regulatory network
(Figure 4). We first considered SPL9 mutants and moni-
tored sentinel expression in this genetic background.
However, even if some defects have been observed, no
consistent phenotype can be reported (data not shown).
This may be readily explained by the topological redun-
dancy of the network (Figure 4). Thus, one could expect
that over-expression of SPL9 mRNA would trigger a
detectable effect on the predicted sentinel targets and
on the network behavior. SPL9 is a miR156-targeted
SBP-box transcription factor identified to control shoot
development [45] and flowering transition [46,47], and it
also appears as a potential central regulator in the net-
work derived from the SSM (Figure 4). SBP-box tran-
scription factors are potentially redundant, but the use
of miR156-resistant SPL9 transgenic plants (resulting in
over-expression/gain of function plants) has been exten-
sively used to decipher their role. In our experimental
set-up, transgenic SPL9 mRNA is over-expressed 4- to
20-fold in the miR156-resistant plants compared to wild
type (Figure 5). Moreover, although the rSPL9 mRNA
resulting from the modified gene is resistant to degrada-
tion by miR156 (explaining the over-expression) the
transgene is still under the control of its native promo-
ter. Thus, this over-expression reflects, at least in part,
the promoter activity or the effect of other post-tran-
scriptional controls (independent of miR156). This
demonstrates that the SPL9 promoter activity is poten-
tially also under the effect of NO3-, since rSPL9 mRNA
exhibits a transitory depression in the transgenic plants
(Figure 5).
mRNA transcription levels of several sentinel genes
have been followed in this pSPL9:rSPL9 transgenic
line. The most dramatic effect recorded is for the
NIR target sentinel gene. Interestingly, the NIR gene
has previously been demonstrated to be one of the
most robustly NO3--regulated genes based on a meta-
analysis of microarray data from nitrogen treated
plants [14]. In support of this, over-expression of the
SPL9 gene leads to a significant advance in the NIR
NO3-response by about 10 minutes, and attenuates
its magnitude of regulation at later time points (60
minutes). Less dramatic but still significant effects
(over three independent experiments) have been
recorded for NRT1.1/CIPK23 genes, belonging to the
NO3-sensing module [20], and for the NIA2 gene.
These results demonstrate a role of the SPL9 tran-
scription factor in the control of genes involved in
the NO3-primary response. We also further investi-
gated the role of SPL9 over-expression on the tran-
scription levels of genes in the network over time
(Figure 4b). Interestingly, SPL9 seems to have an
effect on the vast majority of the genes in the regula-
tory network that we have tested (Additional file 5).
The diversity of the misregulation of gene expression
is high. For instance, 4 out of the 14 genes tested dis-
play an early effect (between 0 and 20 minutes) after
the SPL9 over-expression. However, 11 genes display
modified gene expression at later time points (40 and
60 minutes).
An observation needs to be made at this point. We
compared the predicted effect of SPL9 on its putative
targets (inferred by ML), with the actual effect of over-
expression of SPL9 on these genes measured by Q-PCR.
The only systematic effect that we found is that genes
predicted to be negatively regulated by SPL9 display an
early induction in the pSPL9:rSPL9 line and are indeed
less induced at later time points (this is an interesting
feature found for four genes, including NIR, At1g13300,
At5g10030, and At5g65210). However, the opposite is
not true, since the genes predicted to be up-regulated
by SPL9 also display a ‘down-regulation’ at later time
points (by 60 minutes), but no ‘up-regulation’ at early
time points (10 to 20 minutes), in response to rSPL9
over-expression. This relative absence of logic can be
very easily explained by the predicted functional redun-
dancy found in the network (also discussed below). The
question about predicting the over-expression of a net-
work hub is intriguing and will need further investiga-
tion, including the generation of transcriptome data to
probe and learn how the whole system is perturbed by
gene over-expression.
On the other hand, it is noteworthy that with its
intrinsically highly connected topology, the network is
able to amplify effects (such as SPL9 over-expression)
across steps/time. Indeed, consider a simple positive
feedback loop where A®B and also B®A; if the coeffi-
cient of A®B and B®A is only 10%, this is enough that
when the expression of A and B is 100 at time 0, it will
reach 160 after 5 steps. Here, we hypothesize that this is
what happens for SPL9; that it takes time (more than
20 minutes) to amplify the differences recorded for the
11 genes with modified gene expression at later time
points.
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*
*
***
30.3
SPL9
x 2.6
x 4.4
*
18.9
8.6
time (min)
25.1
27.7
35.5
NIR
NIR
WT (Col)
pSPL9:rSPL9
*
****
*
**
NRT2.1
NRT1.1
*
x 1.1
x 1.9
3.7
1.9
4.2
5.4
8.2
5.8
***
*
SPL9
NRT2.1
NRT1.1
NIA1
NRT3.1
NIA2
CIPK23
Figure 5 rSPL9 over-expression modifies NO3-kinetic responses. Sentinel gene mRNA levels in roots of wild type (WT) and transgenic
pSPL9:rSPL9 plants in response to NO3-treatment. Fourteen-day-old plants grown in ammonium succinate were treated with 1 mM KNO3versus
KCl. Roots were collected at 0 minutes (before treatment) and 10, 20, 40, and 60 minutes after the treatment. Sentinel transcripts were measured
in roots using RT-QPCR and normalized to two housekeeping genes (see Materials and methods). The data represent the mean ± standard error
of three biological replicates (three independent experiments). Differences between the two genotypes are statistically significant at *P < 0.05;
**P < 0.01 and ***P < 0.001 (t-test). When a gene presents significant differences, the NO3-induction ratio compared to time 0 is indicated by
the numbers close to the plots. The inserts display a zoom of the early time points. More genes (transcription factors) are displayed in Additional
file 5.
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This analysis defined SPL9 as a potential hub for short
time scale regulatory behavior, with small-amplitude
regulatory effects (36% maximum). Those effects are
going to be amplified across consecutive time steps and
have longer-term (beyond 40 minutes) effects on addi-
tional genes. Thus, the interesting part of machine
learning approach is that it can be used to predict the
eventual behavior at time points that were not used in
the ML process.
Interestingly, in our experimental setup, pSPL9:rSPL9
does not display any obvious developmental phenotype,
contrary to what was described by Wang et al. [48].
These diverging results may be explained by the differ-
ent plant growth conditions used in the two studies. In
particular, in our pre-treatment conditions, plants were
grown for 14 days in ammonium succinate without any
NO3-. By contrast, in the Wang et al. studies the pheno-
types were observed in plants grown on nitrate as a
nitrogen source. The hypothesis that the phenotypes are
nitrate-dependent is supported by the fact that the
majority of the pSPL9:rSPL9 gene regulation phenotypes
(Figure 5; Additional file 5) are triggered by NO3-provi-
sion. Out of the 18 genes displaying a mis-regulation in
the transgenic plants, only the CIPK23 gene displays a
phenotype before nitrate treatment. For the 17 other
genes, NO3-is necessary to promote the rSPL9 over-
expression effect.
In order to test the hypothesis that nitrate induces the
phenotypes in transgenic plants, plants (wild type and
pSPL9:rSPL9) were plated on the same background
media used for the kinetic experiments (see Materials
and methods) and complemented with 0.5 mM (NH4)2-
succinate or 1 mM KNO3. Following 8 days after germi-
nation, different root traits were scored. These results
show that indeed the presence of NO3-enhances pSPL9:
rSPL9 phenotypes (Additional file 6). Overall, only minor
developmental differences were recorded on the (NH4)2-
succinate media that cannot explain the distinct molecu-
lar phenotypes shown in Figure 5 and Additional file 5.
From a biological point of view, the modification of
the nitrogen status of the plant (induced by nitrogen
deprivation) has been shown to increase pri-miR156
accumulation [49] and mature miR156 in Hsieh et al.
[50]. However, it is noteworthy that miR156 induction is
not restricted to nitrogen deprivation, as phosphorus
deprivation can also induce miR156 accumulation [50].
On the SPL9 side, we found that its expression across
the Affymetrix NASC dataset is either positively or
negatively correlated with key molecular actors in NO3-
sensing, metabolism and development (NRT1.1, -0.68;
NRT1.2, -0.55; ARF8, 0.73). These results provide addi-
tional support for a role for the mir156/SPL9 partners
in the control of the nitrogen response in plants and
potentially in its coordination with other signals, such as
phosphorus status.
A highly complex connected network: causes and
consequences?
Our machine learning approach (state-space modeling)
proposes a regulatory network learned from a high-
resolution dynamic transcriptome analysis made in
response to KNO3provision. A first interesting feature
of this regulatory network is that it predicts a high level
of connectivity (Figure 4b). Indeed, for the 76 studied
genes, 60 have 500 significant connections (P-value
< 0.001; see Materials and methods). This high level of
connectivity (favoring functional redundancy) may
explain why, to date, experimental analyses have uncov-
ered only few molecular actors specifically involved
in the control of NO3--induced gene expression
(NRT1.1, CIPK8, CIPK23, NLP7, LBD37/LBD38/LBD39)
[2,20-23]. Moreover, this level of potential transcription
factor redundancy can be a cause of the variable and
conditional NO3-genomic responses registered over dif-
ferent laboratories and discussed in Gutierrez et al. [14]
and Krouk et al. [2].
Predicted regulatory network influences
The identification of regulatory networks is a major aim
of systems biology. Relatively few studies have deter-
mined regulatory networks precisely enough so that the
model can predict behavior in untested conditions; the
successful studies concern unicellular organisms such as
Halobacterium salinarum [32,33]. Our regulatory net-
work model is far more simple; it includes less than a
hundred genes and is much less predictive than the one
developed for Halobacterium since our model is fed
only with transcriptomic data and vastly fewer experi-
ments. Interestingly, however, both approaches predict
rather low transcription factor influences. Indeed, the
maximum predicted influence of one transcription fac-
tor on one gene of our model ranges between 10% and
30% (positive or negative influences). Low influence rate
might reinforce the notion that functional redundancy is
a built-in feature of regulatory networks that helps
organisms adapt themselves to the context of interacting
environmental and/or evolutionary forces. Also, the fact
that Arabidopsis is a multicellular organism suggests a
potential for some ‘hidden’ regulatory networks, as cell-
specific studies have suggested [10]. This level of com-
plexity, combined with the fact that genes in plants are
not organized in functional clusters (as they are in bac-
teria), are likely to be some of the numerous reasons
why our model is less predictive compared to that
for Halobacterium. Thus, the next challenge of the
plant systems approach will be to reach a level of
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understanding able to infer regulatory networks at
several levels of integration [3].
Comparative study of state-space model optimization
versus non-state-space methods
In order to measure the improvement of our SSM over
the non-state-space methods, given our Arabidopsis
dataset, we also ran our SSM with the state-space coeffi-
cient set to g = 0 for the following methods: 1) kinetic
ODE with LARS optimization, as in Bonneau et al.
[32,33]; 2) first-order vector-autoregressive model with
Elastic Nets optimization, as in Shimamura et al. [35];
and 3) ‘Brownian motion’ ODE, without mRNA degra-
dation, similar in principle to the method used in Wang
et al. [34].
As Table 2 shows, the quality of fit (signal-to-noise
ratio) on the training data was slightly worse (32.1 dB)
in all non-SSM methods than in our SSM (32.4 dB).
The predictive performance on the training data set was
90% of correct signs for all methods. The leave-out-last
performance of 3) was worse (below 65% correct signs
on the test set), while it was the same for 1) and 2) as
in the LARS-based SSM, that is, 74% correct signs on
the test set.
The non-SSM approaches that we considered in Table
2 would each give a unique solution, while our SSM
would give slightly different solutions over consecutive
runs, thus enabling a bootstrapping procedure. For this
reason, our SSM offers a more principled way to deal
with uncertainty and avoid over-fitting in microarray
measurements than non-SSM methods. Second, our
SSM is flexible because it enables adding unobserved
variables as additional transcription factors.
Conclusions
This systems biology study uses machine learning on
time series of transcriptome data to generate testable
hypotheses for the potential mechanisms underlying the
NO3-transduction signal. We demonstrate that a part of
the NO3-response (happening within minutes after
NO3-provision) has been missed by previous transcrip-
tional approaches. This early response contains candi-
date transcription factors such as SPL9 that can modify
the characteristics of NO3-signal propagation in gene
networks. Furthermore, we demonstrate that state-space
modeling can infer putative regulatory networks on
sparse datasets and thereby suggest hypotheses that will
help to decipher poorly understood signaling pathways.
Materials and methods
Plant material and treatments
Arabidopsis plants, ecotype Columbia or transgenic
plants (pSPL9:rSPL9) [46], were grown in sterile hydro-
ponics as adapted from [10]. In detail, sterilized seeds
were sown on Nitex 03-250/47 mesh (Sefar America,
Bricarcliff Manor, NY, USA) supported by a plastic plat-
form to allow roots to grow in hydroponics inside a
sterile Phytatray (Sigma-Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA).
Hydroponic media consisted of 1X Murashige and
Skoog basal medium containing no nitrogen or sucrose
(custom-ordered, GibcoBRL, Gaithersburg, MD, USA)
supplemented with 3 mM sucrose, 0.5 mM ammonium
succinate, MES buffered at pH 5.7 (0.5 g.l-1). Plants
were grown for 14 to 16 days in day/night cycles (16/8
h; 150 μmol photons m-2.s-1; Percival Scientific Inc.,
Perry, IA, USA) at 22°C. Twenty-four hours before the
treatments, plants were transferred toward an equivalent
fresh nitrogen-free medium in continuous light to avoid
gene regulation induced by light. KNO3was added to
the media at 1 mM, or otherwise as stated in the figures.
Control plants were mock-treated by adding the same
concentration of KCl. The samples corresponding to
time 0 were first harvested and then the treatment
(KNO3or KCl was applied by transferring the plants
onto the refreshed nitrogen-free complemented media
(with KNO3and KCL). Then, the stopwatch was started.
Roots were then harvested every 3 minutes and immedi-
ately frozen in liquid nitrogen. It takes an average of 20
to 30 seconds to harvest a sample. For growth experi-
ments, plants were directly plated on petri dishes con-
taining agar (1%) solidified media identical to the
hydroponic one described above.
RNA preparation and RT-QPCR analysis
Total RNA extraction was performed using Trizol™
Reagent according to the manufacturer’s recommenda-
tions (Invitrogen, San Diego, CA, USA). Total RNA
(1 to 2 μg) was digested by DNase I (Sigma). RNA was
then reverse transcribed to one-strand cDNA using
Thermo™ script RT (Invitrogen) according to the manu-
facturer’s protocol. Gene expression was determined by
RT-QPCR (LightCycler; Roche Diagnostics, Basel, Swit-
zerland) using gene-specific primers (Additional file 7)
and LightCycler FastStart DNA Master SYBR Green
(Roche Diagnostics). Expression levels of tested genes
were normalized to expression levels of the ACT2/8 and
clathrin genes as described in [17].
Microarray hybridization
cDNA was synthesized from 2 μg total RNA using
T7- Oligo(dT) promoter primer and reagents recom-
mended by Affymetrix (Santa Clara, CA, USA). Biotin-
labeled cRNA was synthesized according to the manu-
facturer’s protocol. Labeled cRNA (8 μg) was hybridized
to Arabidopsis ATH1 Affymetrix gene chip for 16 h at
45°C. Washing, staining and scanning were performed
as recommended by Affymetrix. Image analysis and nor-
malization to a target median intensity of 150 was
Krouk et al. Genome Biology 2010, 11:R123
http://genomebiology.com/content/11/12/R123
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