Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core

Tulane University Of Louisiana, New Orleans LA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY The purpose of this U19 Program Project (U19) is to comprehensively identify osteoporosis risk genes/bacterial species and their functional products from the human genome and gut microbiome. We will characterize their functions through comprehensive trans-omics integrative analyses of the data generated both from this renewal project and from our ongoing U19 (U19 AG055373, 9/15/2017-). This program involves extensive data management and complex analyses, requiring organic and simultaneous consideration of data from multiple component projects and demanding powerful and innovative analysis methodology. Thus, a Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Core (BBC) is necessary focusing on the use of both existing and the development of novel, integrative analysis approaches. The Objective of the BBC is to serve as a backbone support core for experimental design refinement, data quality control, management, imputation, integration, and interpretation, and to serve as a synergizer to foster data and information exchange and collaboration across individual projects/cores within the U19. Built upon the Core members’ long-term productive collaborations, the BBC will provide services through the following Specific Aims: 1) To deliver efficient support and services for data management, including high-quality data entry and database management, query and maintenance, data quality control, safety, monitoring, sharing, etc. 2) To provide strong support for and conduct extensive biostatistics and bioinformatics, especially multi- and trans- omics data imputation and integrative analyses. Closely working with the U19 investigators, the BBC will support both single-level omics data analyses and integrative analyses of multi-level omics data. Particularly, the BBC will pioneer a sophisticated integrative analysis strategy. This highly innovative strategy will link gut microbiome DNA, human host DNA, miRNA, methylation, and metabolomic data anchored via gene-based mRNA hubs to construct unified functional multi-omics modules and regulatory networks/pathways for both osteoblastogenic and osteoclastogenic lineage cells. These re-constructed functional modules and regulatory networks/pathways will then be used in disease association/causality analyses for osteoporosis risk. 3) To evaluate, validate, and apply novel, robust and powerful integrative analysis methods for the identification and characterization of (epi-)genes and variants, gut microbiome bacterial species, and gene/pathway functions for osteoporosis. The novel methods developed in-house (e.g., through recent R01’s funded to Core Director – Dr. Wang) under rigorous statistical frameworks, together with those developed by other groups in the field, will be comparatively used. These methods will characterize and incorporate crosstalks/interactions among-omics, along with prior biological information, to study causal relationships between multi-omics data and diseases. The innovative methods will be applied to, and empirically tested in, the multi-omics data obtained from and those available to this U19. The BBC will be an efficient, capable, and powerful core component, serving all U19 projects and the overall goal of this U19 that intends to integrate the individual project results.