Evaluation of the activity of the cell signaling path using a probabilistic model of the expression of the target gene

摘要

A method comprising: inferring the activity of one or more cell signaling pathways in tissue from a medical subject based at least on the level or levels (20) of expression of one or more target genes of the cell signaling pathways measured in a sample extracted from the tissue of the medical subject, where the inference comprises: inferring the activity of cellular signaling pathways in the tissue of the medical subject by evaluating at least a portion of a probabilistic model (40-1, ..., 40- 7), preferably a Bayesian network (40-1, ..., 40-7), which represent the cellular signaling pathways for a set of inputs that include at least the levels (20) of expression of the one or more target genes of the cell signaling routes measured in the samples extracted from the tissue of the medical subject; estimating a level (46) in the tissue of the medical subject of at least one element of transcription factor (TF), the at least one TF element that controls the transcription of the one or more target genes of the cell signaling pathways, being based the estimation at least in part of conditional probabilities that relate the at least one TF element and the levels (20) of expression of one or more target genes of the cell signaling routes measured in the sample extracted from the tissue of the medical subject; and inferring the activity of the cell signaling pathway based on the estimated level in the tissue sample of the transcription factor element; wherein the inference is made by means of a digital processing device (12) that uses the probabilistic model (40-1, ..., 40-7) of the cellular signaling routes,