Dissecting gene expression heterogeneity: generalized Pearson correlation squares and the -lines clustering algorithm.

Motivated by the pressing needs for dissecting heterogeneous relationships in gene expression data, here we generalize the squared Pearson correlation to capture a mixture of linear dependences between two real-valued variables, with or without an index variable that specifies the line memberships. We construct the generalized Pearson correlation squares by focusing on three aspects: variable exchangeability, no parametric model assumptions, and inference of population-level parameters. To compute the generalized Pearson correlation square from a sample without a line-membership specification, we develop a -lines clustering algorithm to find clusters that exhibit distinct linear dependences, where can be chosen in a data-adaptive way.

Pragmatic Trial of Hospitalization Rate in Chronic Kidney Disease.

Background: Despite the availability of effective therapies for patients with chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension (the kidney-dysfunction triad), the results of large-scale trials examining the implementation of guideline-directed therapy to reduce the risk of death and complications in this population are lacking.

Methods: In this open-label, cluster-randomized trial, we assigned 11,182 patients with the kidney-dysfunction triad who were being treated at 141 primary care clinics either to receive an intervention that used a personalized algorithm (based on the patient's electronic health record [EHR]) to identify patients and practice facilitators to assist providers in delivering guideline-based interventions or to receive usual care. The primary outcome was hospitalization for any cause at 1 year.

Qa-SNARE syntaxin 18 mediates lipid droplet fusion with SNAP23 and SEC22B.

Lipid droplets (LDs) are dynamic lipid storage organelles that can sense and respond to changes in systemic energy balance. The size and number of LDs are controlled by complex and delicate mechanisms, among which, whether and which SNARE proteins mediate LD fusion, and the mechanisms governing this process remain poorly understood. Here we identified a SNARE complex, syntaxin 18 (STX18)-SNAP23-SEC22B, that is recruited to LDs to mediate LD fusion.

Two provably consistent divide-and-conquer clustering algorithms for large networks.

In this article, we advance divide-and-conquer strategies for solving the community detection problem in networks. We propose two algorithms that perform clustering on several small subgraphs and finally patch the results into a single clustering. The main advantage of these algorithms is that they significantly bring down the computational cost of traditional algorithms, including spectral clustering, semidefinite programs, modularity-based methods, likelihood-based methods, etc.

Perilipin 5 links mitochondrial uncoupled respiration in brown fat to healthy white fat remodeling and systemic glucose tolerance.

Exposure of mice or humans to cold promotes significant changes in brown adipose tissue (BAT) with respect to histology, lipid content, gene expression, and mitochondrial mass and function. Herein we report that the lipid droplet coat protein Perilipin 5 (PLIN5) increases markedly in BAT during exposure of mice to cold. To understand the functional significance of cold-induced PLIN5, we created and characterized gain- and loss-of-function mouse models.