Researchers use deep learning to identify gene regulation at single-cell level

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have developed a new deep-learning framework that predicts gene regulation at the single-cell level. In a study published recently in Science Advances, UCI researchers describe how their deep-learning technique can also be successfully used to observe gene regulation at the cellular level. Until now, that process had been limited to tissue-level analysis. According to co-author Xiaohui Xie, UCI professor of computer science, the framework enables the study of transcription factor binding at the cellular level, which was previously impossible due to the intrinsic noise and sparsity of single-cell data. A transcription factor (TF) is a protein that controls the translation of genetic information from DNA to RNA; TFs regulate genes to ensure they're expressed in proper sequence and at the right time in cells.