State-of-the art selection methods fail to identify weak but cumulative effects of features found in many high-dimensional omics datasets. Nevertheless, these features play an important role in certain diseases. We present Netboost, a three-step dimension reduction technique. First, a boosting-based filter is combined with the topological overlap measure to identify the essential edges of the network. Second, sparse hierarchical clustering is applied on the selected edges to identify modules and finally module information is aggregated by the first principal components. We demonstrate the application of the newly developed Netboost in combination with CoxBoost for survival prediction of DNA methylation and gene expression data from 180 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients and show, based on cross-validated prediction error curve estimates, its prediction superiority over variable selection on the full dataset as well as over an alternative clustering approach. The identified signature related to chromatin modifying enzymes was replicated in an independent dataset, the phase II AMLSG 12-09 study. In a second application we combine Netboost with Random Forest classification and improve the disease classification error in RNA-sequencing data of Huntington's disease mice. Netboost is a freely available Bioconductor R package for dimension reduction and hypothesis generation in high-dimensional omics applications.

BACKGROUND: When many (up to millions) of statistical tests are conducted in discovery set analyses such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS), approaches controlling family-wise error rate (FWER) or false discovery rate (FDR) are required to reduce the number of false positive decisions. Some methods were specifically developed in the context of high-dimensional settings and partially rely on the estimation of the proportion of true null hypotheses. However, these approaches are also applied in low-dimensional settings such as replication set analyses that might be restricted to a small number of specific hypotheses. The aim of this study was to compare different approaches in low-dimensional settings using (a) real data from the CKDGen Consortium and (b) a simulation study. RESULTS: In both application and simulation FWER approaches were less powerful compared to FDR control methods, whether a larger number of hypotheses were tested or not. Most powerful was the q-value method. However, the specificity of this method to maintain true null hypotheses was especially decreased when the number of tested hypotheses was small. In this low-dimensional situation, estimation of the proportion of true null hypotheses was biased. CONCLUSIONS: The results highlight the importance of a sizeable data set for a reliable estimation of the proportion of true null hypotheses. Consequently, methods relying on this estimation should only be applied in high-dimensional settings. Furthermore, if the focus lies on testing of a small number of hypotheses such as in replication settings, FWER methods rather than FDR methods should be preferred to maintain high specificity.

BACKGROUND: High-throughput technology allows for genome-wide measurements at different molecular levels for the same patient, e.g. single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene expression. Correspondingly, it might be beneficial to also integrate complementary information from different molecular levels when building multivariable risk prediction models for a clinical endpoint, such as treatment response or survival. Unfortunately, such a high-dimensional modeling task will often be complicated by a limited overlap of molecular measurements at different levels between patients, i.e. measurements from all molecular levels are available only for a smaller proportion of patients. RESULTS: We propose a sequential strategy for building clinical risk prediction models that integrate genome-wide measurements from two molecular levels in a complementary way. To deal with partial overlap, we develop an imputation approach that allows us to use all available data. This approach is investigated in two acute myeloid leukemia applications combining gene expression with either SNP or DNA methylation data. After obtaining a sparse risk prediction signature e.g. from SNP data, an automatically selected set of prognostic SNPs, by componentwise likelihood-based boosting, imputation is performed for the corresponding linear predictor by a linking model that incorporates e.g. gene expression measurements. The imputed linear predictor is then used for adjustment when building a prognostic signature from the gene expression data. For evaluation, we consider stability, as quantified by inclusion frequencies across resampling data sets. Despite an extremely small overlap in the application example with gene expression and SNPs, several genes are seen to be more stably identified when taking the (imputed) linear predictor from the SNP data into account. In the application with gene expression and DNA methylation, prediction performance with respect to survival also indicates that the proposed approach might work well. CONCLUSIONS: We consider imputation of linear predictor values to be a feasible and sensible approach for dealing with partial overlap in complementary integrative analysis of molecular measurements at different levels. More generally, these results indicate that a complementary strategy for integrating different molecular levels can result in more stable risk prediction signatures, potentially providing a more reliable insight into the underlying biology.

MOTIVATION: For analyzing high-dimensional time-to-event data with competing risks, tailored modeling techniques are required that consider the event of interest and the competing events at the same time, while also dealing with censoring. For low-dimensional settings, proportional hazards models for the subdistribution hazard have been proposed, but an adaptation for high-dimensional settings is missing. In addition, tools for judging the prediction performance of fitted models have to be provided. RESULTS: We propose a boosting approach for fitting proportional subdistribution hazards models for high-dimensional data, that can e.g. incorporate a large number of microarray features, while also taking clinical covariates into account. Prediction performance is evaluated using bootstrap.632+ estimates of prediction error curves, adapted for the competing risks setting. This is illustrated with bladder cancer microarray data, where simultaneous consideration of both, the event of interest and competing events, allows for judging the additional predictive power gained from incorporating microarray measurements. AVAILABILITY: The proposed boosting approach is implemented in the R package CoxBoost and prediction error estimation in the package peperr, both available from CRAN.

UNLABELLED: There is a multitude of new techniques that promise to extract predictive information in bioinformatics applications. It has been recognized that a first step for validation of the resulting model fits should rely on proper use of resampling techniques. However, this advice is frequently not followed, potential reasons being difficulty of correct implementation and computational demand. This is addressed by the R package peperr, which is designed for reliable prediction error estimation through resampling, potentially accelerated by parallel execution on a compute cluster. Its interface allows easy connection to newly developed model fitting routines. Performance evaluation of the latter is furthermore guided by diagnostic plots, which helps to detect specific problems due to high-dimensional data structures. AVAILABILITY: http://cran.r-project.org, http://www.imbi.uni-freiburg.de/parallel. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

BACKGROUND: There are several techniques for fitting risk prediction models to high-dimensional data, arising from microarrays. However, the biological knowledge about relations between genes is only rarely taken into account. One recent approach incorporates pathway information, available, e.g., from the KEGG database, by augmenting the penalty term in Lasso estimation for continuous response models. RESULTS: As an alternative, we extend componentwise likelihood-based boosting techniques for incorporating pathway information into a larger number of model classes, such as generalized linear models and the Cox proportional hazards model for time-to-event data. In contrast to Lasso-like approaches, no further assumptions for explicitly specifying the penalty structure are needed, as pathway information is incorporated by adapting the penalties for single microarray features in the course of the boosting steps. This is shown to result in improved prediction performance when the coefficients of connected genes have opposite sign. The properties of the fitted models resulting from this approach are then investigated in two application examples with microarray survival data. CONCLUSION: The proposed approach results not only in improved prediction performance but also in structurally different model fits. Incorporating pathway information in the suggested way is therefore seen to be beneficial in several ways.

Abstract Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

BACKGROUND: When predictive survival models are built from high-dimensional data, there are often additional covariates, such as clinical scores, that by all means have to be included into the final model. While there are several techniques for the fitting of sparse high-dimensional survival models by penalized parameter estimation, none allows for explicit consideration of such mandatory covariates. RESULTS: We introduce a new boosting algorithm for censored time-to-event data that shares the favorable properties of existing approaches, i.e., it results in sparse models with good prediction performance, but uses an offset-based update mechanism. The latter allows for tailored penalization of the covariates under consideration. Specifically, unpenalized mandatory covariates can be introduced. Microarray survival data from patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, in combination with the recent, bootstrap-based prediction error curve technique, is used to illustrate the advantages of the new procedure. CONCLUSION: It is demonstrated that it can be highly beneficial in terms of prediction performance to use an estimation procedure that incorporates mandatory covariates into high-dimensional survival models. The new approach also allows to answer the question whether improved predictions are obtained by including microarray features in addition to classical clinical criteria.

MOTIVATION: In the process of developing risk prediction models, various steps of model building and model selection are involved. If this process is not adequately controlled, overfitting may result in serious overoptimism leading to potentially erroneous conclusions. METHODS: For right censored time-to-event data, we estimate the prediction error for assessing the performance of a risk prediction model (Gerds and Schumacher, 2006; Graf et al., 1999). Furthermore, resampling methods are used to detect overfitting and resulting overoptimism and to adjust the estimates of prediction error (Gerds and Schumacher, 2007). RESULTS: We show how and to what extent the methodology can be used in situations characterized by a large number of potential predictor variables where overfitting may be expected to be overwhelming. This is illustrated by estimating the prediction error of some recently proposed techniques for fitting a multivariate Cox regression model applied to the data of a prognostic study in patients with diffuse large-B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). AVAILABILITY: Resampling-based estimation of prediction error curves is implemented in an R package called pec available from the authors.