Regulatory networks containing enhancer-gene edges define cellular states. Multiple efforts have revealed these networks for reference tissues and cell lines by integrating multi-omics data. However, the methods developed cannot be applied for large patient cohorts due to the infeasibility of chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) for limited biopsy material. We trained machine-learning models using chromatin interaction analysis with paired-end tag sequencing (ChIA-PET) and high-throughput chromosome conformation capture combined with chromatin immunoprecipitation (HiChIP) data that can predict connections using only assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq) and RNA-seq data as input, which can be generated from biopsies. Our method overcomes limitations of correlation-based approaches that cannot distinguish between distinct target genes of given enhancers or between active vs. poised states in different samples, a hallmark of network rewiring in cancer. Application of our model on 371 samples across 22 cancer types revealed 1,780 enhancer-gene connections for 602 cancer genes. Using CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), we validated enhancers predicted to regulate ESR1 in estrogen receptor (ER)+ breast cancer and A1CF in liver hepatocellular carcinoma.
Keywords: CP: Molecular biology; CP: Systems biology; cancer; chromatin accessibility; enhancer; regulatory network.
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