MORPHIN

MORPHIN projects model organism gene sets onto a genome-scale human gene network to prioritize human diseases and contextualize model organism findings via orthology-based mapping.

Key Features:

• Orthology-based projection: Maps genes from model organisms to human orthologs for integration into human gene-level analyses.
• Genome-scale human gene network integration: Projects query genes onto a comprehensive human gene network to evaluate network relationships.
• Disease prioritization from model organism gene sets: Ranks human diseases relevant to input sets of model organism genes.
• Conventional overlap-based gene set enrichment analysis: Assesses overlap between model organism-derived gene sets and human disease-associated gene sets.
• Network-based measure of closeness: Evaluates proximity within the human gene network between query genes and disease-associated genes to detect non-overlap associations.
• Identification of candidate model systems: Supports identification of potential new model organisms for studying human diseases based on mapped associations.
• Contextualization of model organism studies: Provides disease-relevant context for existing model organism experiments by linking to human disease genes and pathways.
• Leveraging evolutionary conservation: Utilizes conserved disease pathways across species to translate model organism findings to human biology.

Scientific Applications:

• Disease prioritization: Prioritizes human diseases associated with gene sets derived from model organisms.
• Model system selection: Identifies candidate model organisms suitable for studying specific human diseases.
• Experimental interpretation: Provides human disease context for results from model organism experiments.
• Discovery of non-overlap associations: Detects disease associations not evident from direct gene overlap by using network proximity measures.
• Cross-species translational research: Facilitates translation of conserved pathways and genes from model organisms to human disease research.

Methodology:

Conventional overlap-based gene set enrichment analysis: assesses overlap between model organism gene sets and human disease-associated gene sets.
Network-based measure of closeness: evaluates proximity within the human gene network between query genes and disease-associated genes to reveal associations beyond direct overlap.