Robust data-driven incorporation of prior knowledge into the inference of dynamic regulatory networks

Inferring global regulatory networks (GRNs) from genome-wide data is a computational challenge central to the field of systems biology. Although the primary data currently used to infer GRNs consist of gene expression and proteomics measurements, there is a growing abundance of alternate data types that can reveal regulatory interactions, e.g. ChIP-Chip, literature-derived interactions, protein-protein interactions. GRN inference requires the development of integrative methods capable of using these alternate data as priors on the GRN structure. Each source of structure priors has its unique biases and inherent potential errors; thus, GRN methods using these data must be robust to noisy inputs.