xEnricherGenesR Documentation

Function to conduct enrichment analysis given a list of genes and the ontology in query

Description

xEnricherGenes is supposed to conduct enrichment analysis given the input data and the ontology in query. It returns an object of class "eTerm". Enrichment analysis is based on either Fisher's exact test or Hypergeometric test. The test can respect the hierarchy of the ontology. Now it supports enrichment analysis using a wide variety of ontologies such as Gene Ontology and Phenotype Ontologies.

Usage

xEnricherGenes(
data,
background = NULL,
check.symbol.identity = FALSE,
ontology = NA,
ontology.customised = NULL,
size.range = c(10, 2000),
min.overlap = 5,
which.distance = NULL,
test = c("fisher", "hypergeo", "binomial"),
background.annotatable.only = NULL,
p.tail = c("one-tail", "two-tails"),
p.adjust.method = c("BH", "BY", "bonferroni", "holm", "hochberg",
"hommel"),
ontology.algorithm = c("none", "pc", "elim", "lea"),
elim.pvalue = 0.01,
lea.depth = 2,
path.mode = c("all_paths", "shortest_paths", "all_shortest_paths"),
true.path.rule = FALSE,
verbose = TRUE,
silent = FALSE,
RData.location = "http://galahad.well.ox.ac.uk/bigdata",
guid = NULL
)

Arguments

data

an input vector containing gene symbols

background

a background vector containing gene symbols as the test background. If NULL, by default all annotatable are used as background

check.symbol.identity

logical to indicate whether to match the input data/background via Synonyms for those unmatchable by official gene symbols. By default, it sets to false

ontology

the ontology supported currently. By default, it is 'NA' to disable this option. Pre-built ontology and annotation data are detailed in xDefineOntology.

ontology.customised

an object 'GS'. Higher priority over 'ontology' above. Required, otherwise it will return NULL

size.range

the minimum and maximum size of members of each term in consideration. By default, it sets to a minimum of 10 but no more than 2000

min.overlap

the minimum number of overlaps. Only those terms with members that overlap with input data at least min.overlap (3 by default) will be processed

which.distance

which terms with the distance away from the ontology root (if any) is used to restrict terms in consideration. By default, it sets to 'NULL' to consider all distances

test

the test statistic used. It can be "fisher" for using fisher's exact test, "hypergeo" for using hypergeometric test, or "binomial" for using binomial test. Fisher's exact test is to test the independence between gene group (genes belonging to a group or not) and gene annotation (genes annotated by a term or not), and thus compare sampling to the left part of background (after sampling without replacement). Hypergeometric test is to sample at random (without replacement) from the background containing annotated and non-annotated genes, and thus compare sampling to background. Unlike hypergeometric test, binomial test is to sample at random (with replacement) from the background with the constant probability. In terms of the ease of finding the significance, they are in order: hypergeometric test > fisher's exact test > binomial test. In other words, in terms of the calculated p-value, hypergeometric test < fisher's exact test < binomial test

background.annotatable.only

logical to indicate whether the background is further restricted to the annotatable. By default, it is NULL: if ontology.algorithm is not 'none', it is always TRUE; otherwise, it depends on the background (if not provided, it will be TRUE; otherwise FALSE). Surely, it can be explicitly stated

p.tail

the tail used to calculate p-values. It can be either "two-tails" for the significance based on two-tails (ie both over- and under-overrepresentation) or "one-tail" (by default) for the significance based on one tail (ie only over-representation)

p.adjust.method

the method used to adjust p-values. It can be one of "BH", "BY", "bonferroni", "holm", "hochberg" and "hommel". The first two methods "BH" (widely used) and "BY" control the false discovery rate (FDR: the expected proportion of false discoveries amongst the rejected hypotheses); the last four methods "bonferroni", "holm", "hochberg" and "hommel" are designed to give strong control of the family-wise error rate (FWER). Notes: FDR is a less stringent condition than FWER

ontology.algorithm

the algorithm used to account for the hierarchy of the ontology. It can be one of "none", "pc", "elim" and "lea". For details, please see 'Note' below

elim.pvalue

the parameter only used when "ontology.algorithm" is "elim". It is used to control how to declare a signficantly enriched term (and subsequently all genes in this term are eliminated from all its ancestors)

lea.depth

the parameter only used when "ontology.algorithm" is "lea". It is used to control how many maximum depth is used to consider the children of a term (and subsequently all genes in these children term are eliminated from the use for the recalculation of the signifance at this term)

path.mode

the mode of paths induced by vertices/nodes with input annotation data. It can be "all_paths" for all possible paths to the root, "shortest_paths" for only one path to the root (for each node in query), "all_shortest_paths" for all shortest paths to the root (i.e. for each node, find all shortest paths with the equal lengths)

true.path.rule

logical to indicate whether the true-path rule should be applied to propagate annotations. By default, it sets to false

verbose

logical to indicate whether the messages will be displayed in the screen. By default, it sets to false for no display

silent

logical to indicate whether the messages will be silent completely. By default, it sets to false. If true, verbose will be forced to be false

RData.location

the characters to tell the location of built-in RData files. See xRDataLoader for details

guid

a valid (5-character) Global Unique IDentifier for an OSF project. See xRDataLoader for details

Value

an object of class "eTerm", a list with following components:

Note

The interpretation of the algorithms used to account for the hierarchy of the ontology is:

See Also

xDefineOntology, xSymbol2GeneID, xEnricher, xSymbol2GeneID, xRDataLoader

Examples

RData.location <- "http://galahad.well.ox.ac.uk/bigdata"
## Not run: 
# Gene-based enrichment analysis using REACTOME pathways
# a) provide the input Genes of interest (eg 500 randomly chosen human genes)
## load human genes
org.Hs.eg <- xRDataLoader(RData='org.Hs.eg',
RData.location=RData.location)
set.seed(825)
data <- as.character(sample(org.Hs.eg$gene_info$Symbol, 500))
data

# optionally, provide the test background (if not provided, all human genes)
#background <- as.character(org.Hs.eg$gene_info$Symbol)

# b) perform enrichment analysis
eTerm <- xEnricherGenes(data=data, ontology="MsigdbC2REACTOME",
RData.location=RData.location)

# c) view enrichment results for the top significant terms
xEnrichViewer(eTerm)

# d) save enrichment results to the file called 'REACTOME_enrichments.txt'
res <- xEnrichViewer(eTerm, top_num=length(eTerm$adjp), sortBy="adjp",
details=TRUE)
output <- data.frame(term=rownames(res), res)
utils::write.table(output, file="REACTOME_enrichments.txt", sep="\t",
row.names=FALSE)

# e) barplot of significant enrichment results
gp <- xEnrichBarplot(eTerm, top_num="auto", displayBy="adjp")
print(gp)

# f) visualise the top 10 significant terms in the ontology hierarchy
# color-code terms according to the adjust p-values (taking the form of 10-based negative logarithm)
xEnrichDAGplot(eTerm, top_num=10, displayBy="adjp",
node.info=c("full_term_name"), graph.node.attrs=list(fontsize=25))
# color-code terms according to the z-scores
xEnrichDAGplot(eTerm, top_num=10, displayBy="zscore",
node.info=c("full_term_name"), graph.node.attrs=list(fontsize=25))

# g) visualise the significant terms in the ontology hierarchy 
# restricted to Immune System ('R-HSA-168256') or Signal Transduction ('R-HSA-162582')
g <- xRDataLoader(RData.customised='ig.REACTOME',
RData.location=RData.location)
neighs.out <- igraph::neighborhood(g, order=vcount(g),
nodes=c("R-HSA-162582","R-HSA-168256"), mode="out")
nodeInduced <- V(g)[unique(unlist(neighs.out))]$name
ig <- igraph::induced.subgraph(g, vids=nodeInduced)
xEnrichDAGplot(eTerm, top_num="auto", ig=ig, displayBy="adjp",
node.info=c("full_term_name"), graph.node.attrs=list(fontsize=25))

## End(Not run)