title: Inter-species prediction of protein phosphorylation in the sbv IMPROVER species translation challenge.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Animal models are widely used in biomedical research for reasons ranging from practical to ethical. An important issue is whether rodent models are predictive of human biology. This has been addressed recently in the framework of a series of challenges designed by the systems biology verification for Industrial Methodology for Process Verification in Research (sbv IMPROVER) initiative. In particular, one of the sub-challenges was devoted to the prediction of protein phosphorylation responses in human bronchial epithelial cells, exposed to a number of different chemical stimuli, given the responses in rat bronchial epithelial cells. Participating teams were asked to make inter-species predictions on the basis of available training examples, comprising transcriptomics and phosphoproteomics data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, the two best performing teams present their data-driven approaches and computational methods. In addition, post hoc analyses of the datasets and challenge results were performed by the participants and challenge organizers. The challenge outcome indicates that successful prediction of protein phosphorylation status in human based on rat phosphorylation levels is feasible. However, within the limitations of the computational tools used, the inclusion of gene expression data does not improve the prediction quality. The post hoc analysis of time-specific measurements sheds light on the signaling pathways in both species.
  
  
  METHODS
  A detailed description of the dataset, challenge design and outcome is available at www.sbvimprover.com. The code used by team IGB is provided under http://github.com/uci-igb/improver2013. Implementations of the algorithms applied by team AMG are available at http://bhanot.biomaps.rutgers.edu/wiki/AMG-sc2-code.zip.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  meikelbiehl@gmail.com.
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Biehl
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sadowski
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Gyan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bhanot
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Erhan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bilal
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Adel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dayarian
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Norel
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Kahn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rhrissorrakrai
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Zeller
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, 9700 AK Groningen, The Netherlands, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, Department of Physics and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Computational Biology, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Sahand
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hormoz
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001980:Bronchi / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010750:Phosphoproteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D010766:Phosphorylation; D051381:Rats; D012984:Software; D013045:Species Specificity; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical
chemical_list: D010750:Phosphoproteins