Disease risk assessment using a Voronoi-based network analysis of genes and variants scores

Abstract

Much effort has been devoted to assess disease risk based on large-scale protein-protein network and genotype-phenotype associations. However, the challenge of risk prediction for complex diseases remains unaddressed. Here, we propose a framework to quantify the risk based on a Voronoi tessellation network analysis, taking into account the disease association scores of both genes and variants. By integrating ClinVar, SNPnexus, and DISEASES databases, we introduce a gene-variant map that is based on the pairwise disease-associated gene-variant scores. This map is clustered using Voronoi tessellation and network analysis with a threshold obtained from fitting the background Voronoi cell density distribution. We define the relative risk of disease that is inferred from the scores of the data points within the related clusters on the gene-variant map. We identify autoimmune-associated clusters that may interact at the system-level. The proposed framework can be used to determine the clusters that are specific to a subtype or contribute to multiple subtypes of complex diseases.