Novel approach Predicting Metal Abundances from Spatial Transcriptomics in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
Arav Srivastava
Lay Summary:
In this novel study on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease, we predicted metal abundances, which represent the amount of metals in a specific coordinate, based on gene expression, to demonstrate the relationship between metal abundances and gene expression. In addition to this, we performed correlation analysis on the gene expression and metals to find the top 15 gene expressions related to each type of metal (In this study, we used Copper, Zinc, Magnesium, Manganese, and Iron). The results from this study can be used to help guide future therapeutics and research about ALS and metals in the science community.
Abstract:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a Neurodegenerative Disease characterized by motor neuron degeneration and heterogeneous molecular pathology. Unfortunately, the role of metals in ALS remains to be an area which is poorly understood. In the past, gene expression and metals have been studied separately, leading to little to no research being done on the interaction between the two. Elements such as iron (Fe65), zinc (Zn66), Manganese (Mn55), magnesium (Mg24), and copper (Cu63) are essential for many functions in the nervous system, including synaptic signaling and neuron homeostasis. Previous studies have shown a high correlation between metals like iron (Fe65) and zinc (Zn66) and genes such as C9orf72, SOD1 with ALS. In this novel study, we investigated metal and gene expression interactions by developing multilayer perceptron models (MLP) that predict spatial metal abundance directly from transcriptomic profiles of four ALS patients' nervous system tissue. In addition to this a model was trained to find gene expressions associated with each type of metal in these ALS patients to find possible new biomarkers in ALS pathology to inform future therapeutic development. Future applications of this study could provide insights into disrupted metal-gene interactions, and guide the development of targeted therapeutic strategies for ALS, and allow us to see relationships between gene expression and metal abundance, providing new insights into the role of metals in ALS pathology.
Q&A:
Bios: Arav Srivastava
Program Track: Advanced Research
GitHub Username:
UnSospiro123lol -Arav Srivastava
What was your favorite seminar? Why?
My favorite seminar was the one with Rishy Deosthali and Vismay. Although I enjoyed every seminar, and they were all very helpful, Rishy’s and Vismay’s presentations stood out to me because they discussed the wonderful work they have done with metals and ALS, a project I am also working on but in a different aspect. -Arav Srivastava
If you were to summarize your summer internship experience in one sentence, what would it be?
Educational, Inspirational, and a wonderful hands on experience with professional mentors. -Arav Srivastava