Multi-megabase scale genome interpretation with genetic language models

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Träuble, Frederik, Stuart, Lachlan, Georgiou, Andreas, Notin, Pascal, Mehrjou, Arash, Schwessinger, Ron, Chevalley, Mathieu, Branson, Kim, Schölkopf, Bernhard, van Duijn, Cornelia, Marks, Debora, Schwab, Patrick
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Träuble, Frederik
Stuart, Lachlan
Georgiou, Andreas
Notin, Pascal
Mehrjou, Arash
Schwessinger, Ron
Chevalley, Mathieu
Branson, Kim
Schölkopf, Bernhard
van Duijn, Cornelia
Marks, Debora
Schwab, Patrick
author_facet Träuble, Frederik
Stuart, Lachlan
Georgiou, Andreas
Notin, Pascal
Mehrjou, Arash
Schwessinger, Ron
Chevalley, Mathieu
Branson, Kim
Schölkopf, Bernhard
van Duijn, Cornelia
Marks, Debora
Schwab, Patrick
contents Understanding how molecular changes caused by genetic variation drive disease risk is crucial for deciphering disease mechanisms. However, interpreting genome sequences is challenging because of the vast size of the human genome, and because its consequences manifest across a wide range of cells, tissues and scales -- spanning from molecular to whole organism level. Here, we present Phenformer, a multi-scale genetic language model that learns to generate mechanistic hypotheses as to how differences in genome sequence lead to disease-relevant changes in expression across cell types and tissues directly from DNA sequences of up to 88 million base pairs. Using whole genome sequencing data from more than 150 000 individuals, we show that Phenformer generates mechanistic hypotheses about disease-relevant cell and tissue types that match literature better than existing state-of-the-art methods, while using only sequence data. Furthermore, disease risk predictors enriched by Phenformer show improved prediction performance and generalisation to diverse populations. Accurate multi-megabase scale interpretation of whole genomes without additional experimental data enables both a deeper understanding of molecular mechanisms involved in disease and improved disease risk prediction at the level of individuals.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_07737
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-megabase scale genome interpretation with genetic language models
Träuble, Frederik
Stuart, Lachlan
Georgiou, Andreas
Notin, Pascal
Mehrjou, Arash
Schwessinger, Ron
Chevalley, Mathieu
Branson, Kim
Schölkopf, Bernhard
van Duijn, Cornelia
Marks, Debora
Schwab, Patrick
Genomics
Machine Learning
Understanding how molecular changes caused by genetic variation drive disease risk is crucial for deciphering disease mechanisms. However, interpreting genome sequences is challenging because of the vast size of the human genome, and because its consequences manifest across a wide range of cells, tissues and scales -- spanning from molecular to whole organism level. Here, we present Phenformer, a multi-scale genetic language model that learns to generate mechanistic hypotheses as to how differences in genome sequence lead to disease-relevant changes in expression across cell types and tissues directly from DNA sequences of up to 88 million base pairs. Using whole genome sequencing data from more than 150 000 individuals, we show that Phenformer generates mechanistic hypotheses about disease-relevant cell and tissue types that match literature better than existing state-of-the-art methods, while using only sequence data. Furthermore, disease risk predictors enriched by Phenformer show improved prediction performance and generalisation to diverse populations. Accurate multi-megabase scale interpretation of whole genomes without additional experimental data enables both a deeper understanding of molecular mechanisms involved in disease and improved disease risk prediction at the level of individuals.
title Multi-megabase scale genome interpretation with genetic language models
topic Genomics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.07737