Abduction Based Drug Target Discovery Using Boolean Control Network

A major challenge in cancer research is to determine the genetic mutations causing the cancerous phenotype of cells and conversely, the actions of drugs initiating programmed cell death in cancer cells. However, such a challenge is compounded by the complexity of the genotype-phenotype relationship and therefore, requires to relate the molecular effects of mutations and drugs to their consequences on cellular phenotypes. Discovering these complex relationships is at the root of new molecular drug targets discovery and cancer etiology investigation. In their elucidation, computational methods play a major role for the inference of the molecular causal actions from molecular and biological networks data analysis. In this article, we propose a theoretical framework where mutations and drug actions are seen as topological perturbations/actions on molecular networks inducing cell phenotype reprogramming. The framework is based on Boolean control networks where the topological network actions are modelled by control parameters. We present a new algorithm using abductive reasoning principles inferring the minimal causal topological actions leading to an expected behavior at stable state. The framework is validated on a model of network regulating the proliferation/apoptosis switch in breast cancer by automatically discovering driver genes and finding drug targets.