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Exposome influences: a multi-omics perspective on the combined toxic effects of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in Alzheimer's disease.

According to WHO data, approximately 57 million people worldwide were affected by dementia in 2021, with prevalence projected to rise. Alzheimer's disease (AD), responsible for 60%-80% of dementia cases, continues to be a leading cause of mortality, with current treatments offering limited efficacy and disease-modifying therapies lacking widespread adoption or conclusive safety evidence, shifting the focus toward prevention and risk modification. Risk factors for AD include both non-modifiable elements, such as age, genetics, and gender, and modifiable factors, like environmental pollution, health status, and diet. While age remains the primary non-modifiable risk factor, early-onset dementia represents only up to 9% of cases. Addressing modifiable factors is essential, as it could prevent or delay almost half of dementia cases, with interventions-such as increased physical activity, smoking cessation, alcohol limitation, and overall health management-being significantly associated with a reduced risk. In this context, the exposome approach offers a comprehensive, integrative framework in which both modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors interact to influence individual susceptibility. Within the neural exposome, chronic low-dose exposure to xenobiotics-such as industrial chemicals, pesticides, metals, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and air pollutants-may induce neurodegeneration via mechanisms including oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, proteinopathies, and epigenetic modifications, although establishing causality remains challenging. Integration of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics, combined with artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), provides promising avenues for biomarker discovery, enhanced preventive strategies, early non-invasive diagnosis, and therapeutic target identification by integrating multi-layered biological data with exposure profiles. This review highlights emerging AD risk factors-including PPCPs-underscoring complex, multifactorial nature of AD and exposome, and the requirement for an interdisciplinary research approach, while also addressing several critical research gaps and methodological limitations.

Alzheimer’s disease↗

Active learning of enhancer and silencer regulatory grammar in photoreceptors.

Cis-regulatory elements (CREs) direct gene expression in health and disease, and models that can accurately predict their activities from DNA sequences are crucial for biomedicine. Deep learning represents one emerging strategy to model the regulatory grammar that relates CRE sequence to function. However, these models require training data on a scale that exceeds the number of CREs in the genome. We address this problem using active machine learning to iteratively train models on multiple rounds of synthetic DNA sequences assayed in live mammalian retinas. During each round of training the model actively selects sequence perturbations to assay, thereby efficiently generating informative training data. We iteratively trained a model that predicts the activities of sequences containing binding motifs for the photoreceptor transcription factor Cone-rod homeobox (CRX) using an order of magnitude less training data than current approaches. The model's internal confidence estimates of its predictions are reliable guides for designing sequences with high activity. The model correctly identified critical sequence differences between active and inactive sequences with nearly identical transcription factor binding sites, and revealed order and spacing preferences for combinations of motifs. Our results establish active learning as an effective method to train accurate deep learning models of cis-regulatory function after exhausting naturally occurring training examples in the genome.

Journal Article↗

BaGGLS: a Bayesian shrinkage framework for interpretable modeling of interactions in high-dimensional biological data.

MOTIVATION: Biological data is often high dimensional, noisy, and governed by complex interactions among sparse signals. This poses major challenges for interpretability and reliable feature selection. Tasks such as identifying motif interactions in genomics exemplify these difficulties, as only a small subset of biologically relevant features (e.g. motifs) are typically active, and their effects are often non-linear and context-dependent. While statistical approaches often result in more interpretable models, deep learning models have proven effective in modeling complex interactions and prediction accuracy, yet their black-box nature limits interpretability. RESULTS: We introduce BaGGLS, a flexible and interpretable probabilistic binary regression model designed for high-dimensional biological inference involving feature interactions. BaGGLS incorporates a Bayesian group global-local shrinkage prior, aligned with the group structure introduced by interaction terms. This prior encourages sparsity while retaining interpretability, helping to isolate meaningful signals and suppress noise. To enable scalable inference, we employ a partially factorized variational approximation that captures posterior skewness and supports efficient learning even in large feature spaces. In extensive simulations, we compare BaGGLS to frequentist probit regressions (unconstrained and with L1-penalty) as well as a probit model with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling under a horseshoe prior. We can show that BaGGLS outperforms the other methods with regard to interaction detection and is many times faster than MCMC sampling under the horseshoe prior. We also demonstrate the usefulness of BaGGLS in the context of interaction discovery from motif scanner outputs (e.g. Find Individual Motif Occurrences (FIMO)) and noisy attribution scores from deep learning models. This shows that BaGGLS is a promising approach for uncovering biologically relevant interaction patterns, with potential applicability across a range of high-dimensional tasks in computational biology. AVAILABILITY: Code is available at gitlab.com/dacs-hpi/baggls.

Bayes Theorem↗

GraphyloVar: predicting the impact of non-coding variants using a multi-species sequence model.

MOTIVATION: Understanding the functional impact of genetic variants is a key problem for precision medicine. Tools like CADD, PhyloP, and PhastCons are useful, but they often look at each position in the genome in isolation. This means they can miss important information from the evolutionary history that connects different species. In this paper, we extend our previous model, Graphylo, to predict the effects of variants. Our new model, GraphyloVar, is built to directly utilize the phylogenetic tree that relates the species. RESULTS: GraphyloVar is a deep learning model that considers both DNA sequence and evolutionary patterns from many species. It uses two main components: Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) to process the phylogenetic tree, and Transformer encoders to extract features from the DNA sequences. Pre-trained to predict population-level allele frequencies on the TOPMed whole-genome sequencing cohort, GraphyloVar achieves an AUROC of 0.6246 zero-shot on &#x223c;149M held-out variants, and an ensemble with CADD reaches 0.6442 (+0.020, P<10-15). Fine-tuned GraphyloVar achieves the highest AUROC across all 13 MPRA benchmark datasets. By integrating deep learning with explicit phylogenetic input, GraphyloVar offers a powerful and complementary approach to variant effect prediction that utilizes the full evolutionary history from many species to better identify and prioritize important non-coding variants. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Code and datasets are available at https://github.com/DongjoonLim/GraphyloVar under DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20616818.

Phylogeny↗

Effects of a metacognitive intervention on students' approaches to learning and self-efficacy in a first year medical course.

AIM: To determine the influence of metacognitive activities within the PBL tutorial environment on the development of deep learning approach, reduction in surface approach, and enhancement of individual learning self-efficacy. METHOD: Participants were first-year medical students (N = 213). A pre-test, post-test design was implemented with intervention and control cohorts, with intervention students experiencing a program of metacognitive activities within their PBL tutorials of at least 20 weeks duration. All students completed the Medical Course Learning Questionnaire at the commencement, and again at the completion of, the study. The metacognitive intervention itself consisted of reflection on the learning in PBL coupled with peer- and self-assessment. RESULTS: Self-efficacy was significantly reduced for both control and intervention cohorts at the conclusion of the study. A significant reduction in the adoption of deep and strategic learning approach, matched by a corresponding increase in the use of surface learning, was demonstrated for both cohorts. There was a statistically significant association between high self-efficacy and deep learning approach, with older students over-represented in the group of efficacious deep learners. CONCLUSION: Over the course of first-year medical studies, students lose self-efficacy and move away from deep-strategic learning approaches towards more surface approaches. The program of metacognitive activities failed to reverse this trend. The substantial swing towards surface learning raises questions about the perceived capacity of PBL curricula to promote deep approaches to learning in dense curricula, and reinforces the importance of personal and contextual factors, such as study habits, workload and assessment, in determining individual approaches and idiosyncratic responses to learning situations.

Adult↗

Leveraging protein language models for cross-variant CRISPR/Cas9 sgRNA activity prediction.

MOTIVATION: Accurate prediction of single-guide RNA (sgRNA) activity is crucial for optimizing the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system, as it directly influences the efficiency and accuracy of genome modifications. However, existing prediction methods mainly rely on large-scale experimental data of a single Cas9 variant to construct Cas9 protein (variants)-specific sgRNA activity prediction models, which limits their generalization ability and prediction performance across different Cas9 protein (variants), as well as their scalability to the continuously discovered new variants. RESULTS: In this study, we proposed PLM-CRISPR, a novel deep learning-based model that leverages protein language models to capture Cas9 protein (variants) representations for cross-variant sgRNA activity prediction. PLM-CRISPR uses tailored feature extraction modules for both sgRNA and protein sequences, incorporating a cross-variant training strategy and a dynamic feature fusion mechanism to effectively model their interactions. Extensive experiments demonstrate that PLM-CRISPR outperforms existing methods across datasets spanning seven Cas9 protein (variants) in three real-world scenarios, demonstrating its superior performance in handling data-scarce situations, including cases with few or no samples for novel variants. Comparative analyses with traditional machine learning and deep learning models further confirm the effectiveness of PLM-CRISPR. Additionally, motif analysis reveals that PLM-CRISPR accurately identifies high-activity sgRNA sequence patterns across diverse Cas9 protein (variants). Overall, PLM-CRISPR provides a robust, scalable, and generalizable solution for sgRNA activity prediction across diverse Cas9 protein (variants). AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The source code can be obtained from https://github.com/CSUBioGroup/PLM-CRISPR.

CRISPR-Cas Systems↗

HINN: Hierarchical Input Neural Network identifies multi-omics biomarker for cognitive decline.

Understanding complex diseases requires models that can integrate diverse layers of biological data while yielding insights that are biologically interpretable. Although multi-omics integration with machine learning (ML) has advanced disease prediction and biomarker discovery, most existing approaches overlook the hierarchical and regulatory relationships that connect these molecular layers. Here, we present the Hierarchical Input Neural Network (HINN), a deep learning framework that incorporates known cross-omics relationships directly into its architecture, capturing the flow of information from genomics to epigenomics, transcriptomics, and downstream biological processes. By embedding these relationships, HINN improves both predictive performance and biological interpretability. We applied HINN to blood-derived multi-omics data from individuals with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment to predict cognitive scores from standardized assessments. HINN outperformed both baseline and state-of-the-art models and pinpointed multi-omics biomarkers-including SNPs and promoter-region CpG sites in ATP6V1C1 and RCHY1 -that were significantly correlated with plasma p-Tau181 levels. These features map to biologically relevant processes with potential implications for cognitive decline. Our findings demonstrate how combining deep learning with biological knowledge can uncover interpretable, blood-based biomarkers for cognitive decline due to complex diseases such as Alzheimer's. All code and data are openly available at https://github.com/bozdaglab/HINN.

Alzheimer&#x2019;s disease↗

Supporting student nurses learning in and through clinical practice: the role of the clinical guide.

Practice learning is an important part of the curriculum and accounts for approximately 50% of the pre-qualifying nursing programme in the United Kingdom. However, the nature of practice learning is very often ill defined, and mentors and nurse teachers apply a range of models to enhance learning in practice settings. Supporting students to learn is an important function for both educators and practitioners, yet there is little consensus in the literature as to what constitutes appropriate support and more importantly which methods promote deep learning. Mentorship is widely relied upon not just as a support mechanism for students but also as the main vehicle for the activities associated with learning, teaching and assessment of practice. Although in recent years nurse education in the UK has embraced mentorship alongside the development of the lecturer practitioner and more recently practice educator roles, other models may be worth further examination, especially those that more overtly enable students to learn through clinical practice encounters. The Clinical Guide is a concept developed by the University of Salford as part of a response to the Fitness for Practice report (UKCC 1999), which encourages Higher Education Institutions together with health care providers to develop partnerships to support students and deliver and monitor learning in practice. The following account outlines the role of the Clinical Guide in relation to pre-registration nursing students and highlights some general inadequacies of the mentor's role in developing deep learning in students in practice settings. It does acknowledge the part mentors have to play in the supporting students and relates to the research literature in this area.

Clinical Competence↗

Machine learning-driven spleen imaging and genomics uncover a splenic connection to coronary artery disease.

Despite advances in managing traditional risk factors, coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of mortality. Circulating hematopoietic cells influence risk for CAD separately from traditional risk factors, but the role of a key regulating organ, the spleen, is unknown. The understudied spleen is a representation of the hematopoietic system optimally suited for unbiased radiologic investigations toward mechanistic insights. Here, we leveraged deep learning to extract 107 splenic radiomic features from abdominal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 42,059 UK Biobank participants and of 2745 Mass General Brigham Biobank (MGBB) participants. Of these, 10 features from UK Biobank were associated with CAD. Genome-wide association analysis of CAD-associated features identified 219 loci, including 9p21. Variants at 9p21, the strongest yet mechanistically elusive CAD locus, were associated with splenic features such as run-length nonuniformity, reflecting heterogeneity of continuous texture regions. Research MRI findings were consistent internally, but external clinical validation highlighted challenges in translating analyses of abdominal MRI scans to routine clinical practice because of variability in imaging protocols and greater clinical heterogeneity among patients. Our study, combining deep learning with genomics, presents a framework to uncover potential splenic involvement in CAD and emphasizes translational gaps between research and clinical radiomics.

Humans↗

Active learning of enhancers and silencers in the developing neural retina.

Deep learning is a promising strategy for modeling cis-regulatory elements. However, models trained on genomic sequences often fail to explain why the same transcription factor can activate or repress transcription in different contexts. To address this limitation, we developed an active learning approach to train models that distinguish between enhancers and silencers composed of binding sites for the photoreceptor transcription factor cone-rod homeobox (CRX). After training the model on nearly all bound CRX sites from the genome, we coupled synthetic biology with uncertainty sampling to generate additional rounds of informative training data. This allowed us to iteratively train models on data from multiple rounds of massively parallel reporter assays. The ability of the resulting models to discriminate between CRX sites with identical sequence but opposite functions establishes active learning as an effective strategy to train models of regulatory DNA. A record of this paper's transparent peer review process is included in the supplemental information.

Retina↗

Flexible use of conserved motifs constrains genome access in cell type evolution.

Cell types can be organized into related families, but the regulatory mechanisms that define and maintain these families across deep evolutionary time remain unknown. Here, combining single-nucleus multi-omic sequencing with deep learning to analyse the accessible genomes of two groups of vastly divergent animals including flatworms and vertebrates, we find that hundreds of accessibility-dictating sequence motifs partition into distinct yet conserved sets, or 'vocabularies', each associated with a specific cell type family. However, combinatorial relationships among these motifs preferred by individual cell types are largely species specific. Deep-learning models trained on one species accurately predict family-level chromatin accessibility in distantly related species, albeit frequently rely on different motifs from shared vocabularies to reach convergent predictions. By contrast, models trained on individual cell types within a family lose cross-species predictive power, indicating that the regulatory syntax governing cell type-level identity evolves rapidly. We propose a 'collective maintenance' model in which motif vocabularies defining cell type families are evolutionarily stable, while recombination of these motifs generates cell type-specific regulatory programmes. This suggests that family identity is maintained collectively by large, conserved pools of regulatory factors, analogous to the logic of developmental homology, where character identity persists through network-level conservation despite extensive rewiring.

Journal Article↗

Lessons learned in deep brain stimulation for movement and neuropsychiatric disorders.

The introduction of deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment for medication-refractory essential tremor in the late 1980s revealed, for the first time, that "chronically" implanted brain hardware had the potential to modulate neurologic function with surprisingly low morbidity. Over time, the therapeutic promise of DBS has become evident in Parkinson's disease and dystonia. In some experienced centers, complex tremor disorders, such as posttraumatic Holmes tremor and the tremor of multiple sclerosis, are being increasingly targeted. More recently, other indications, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette's syndrome, major depression, and chronic pain, have been proposed. As the field has expanded, our knowledge about potential cognitive side effects of DBS has also expanded. This article reviews the current knowledge regarding the impact of stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, globus pallidus internus, and ventralis intermedius nucleus of the thalamus on symptoms in essential tremor, Parkinson's disease, and dystonia. Also discussed are the emerging targets, what is known about the cognitive sequelae of DBS, and what has been learned about the complications and therapeutic failures.

Brain↗

Clinical experience, performance in final examinations, and learning style in medical students: prospective study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether the clinical experience of undergraduate medical students relates to their performance in final examinations and whether learning styles relate either to final examination performance or to the extent of clinical experience. DESIGN: Prospective, longitudinal study of two cohorts of medical students assessed by questionnaire at time of application to medical school and by questionnaire and university examination at the end of their final clinical year. SUBJECTS: Two cohorts of students who had applied to St Mary's Hospital Medical School during 1980 (n = 1478) and 1985 (n = 2399) for admission in 1981 and 1986 respectively. Students in these cohorts who entered any medical school in the United Kingdom were followed up in their final clinical year in 1986-7 and 1991-2. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Student's clinical experience of a range of acute medical conditions, surgical operations, and practical procedures as assessed by questionnaire in the final year, and final examination results for the students taking their examinations at the University of London. RESULTS: Success in the final examination was not related to a student's clinical experiences. The amount of knowledge gained from clinical experience was, however, related to strategic and deep learning styles both in the final year and also at the time of application, five or six years earlier. Grades in A level examinations did not relate either to study habits or to clinical experience. Success in the final examination was also related to a strategic or deep learning style in the final year (although not at time of entry to medical school). CONCLUSIONS: The lack of correlation between examination performance and clinical experience calls into question the validity of final examinations. How much knowledge is gained from clinical experience as a student is able to be predicted from measures of study habits made at the time of application to medical school, some six years earlier, although not from results of A level examinations. Medical schools wishing to select students who will gain the most knowledge from clinical experience cannot use the results of A level examinations alone but could assess a student's learning style.

Clinical Competence↗

Improving RNA Secondary Structure Prediction Through Expanded Training Data.

In recent years, deep learning has revolutionized protein structure prediction, achieving remarkable speed and accuracy. RNA structure prediction, however, has lagged behind. Although several methods have shown some success in predicting RNA secondary and tertiary structures, none have reached the accuracy observed with contemporary protein models. The lack of success of these RNA structure prediction models has been proposed to be due to limited high-quality structural information that can be used as training data. To probe this proposed limitation, we developed a large and diverse dataset comprising paired RNA sequences and their corresponding secondary structures. We assess the utility of this enhanced dataset by retraining on a deep learning model, SincFold. We find that SincFold exhibited improved generalization to some previously unseen RNA families, enhancing its capability to predict accurate de novo RNA secondary structures. The RNASSTR dataset provides a substantial advance for RNA structure modeling, laying a strong foundation for the development of future RNA secondary structure prediction algorithms.

Journal Article↗

[Learning in deep hypnosis. The potentiation of mental abilities?].

INTRODUCTION: Hypnosis is a well known and efficient psychotherapeutic treatment. It has been stated as useful in memory improvement, however, there are only a few reports of this method in teaching, and its neurophysiological aspects. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, the authors were intended to deal with some students' academically difficulties in Histology subject, by improving their mental capacity by means of hypnosis, and then, to compare their previous bad achievements, just in the same subject, with those obtained in a test applied after hypnosis intervention. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In order to fulfil the proposals, seven high academically risk students were hypnotized to make them study under two very deep trance sessions, in which, some suggestions were given, such as: highest concentration, intellectual capacities reinforcement, positive affection, and also: Synthesis, reviewing, and generalization capacity enhancement. The process went into selective deafness, and selective vision as special phenomena. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Students achievements in the final test were compared to those previously obtained in the subject using the Signs Statistical Test. A significant improvement was demonstrated after hypnosis intervention.

Achievement↗

Artificial intelligence (AI) uses in stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS): diagnosis with brain metastasis (BM) - A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Brain metastases (BM) are the most common intracranial tumors in adults, and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has become a mainstay of management. However, several diagnostic challenges persist in the SRS pathway, particularly the differentiation of radiation necrosis (RN) from true tumor progression, which conventional MRI and even advanced imaging techniques often cannot reliably resolve. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) offer the potential to address these diagnostic limitations. This systematic review synthesizes current literature on AI applications for MRI-based diagnostic decision support in BM patients undergoing SRS, with a focus on radiomics and deep learning tools for distinguishing RN from progression, classifying molecular and histologic subtypes, and predicting treatment response. METHODS: A systematic review was performed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched using a targeted query combining terms related to AI, brain metastasis, diagnosis or imaging, and SRS. After screening 483 records and applying strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, 18 studies published between 2015 and 2025 were included. Data were extracted on study design, cohort characteristics, imaging modality, AI methodology, validation strategy, and reported diagnostic performance. RESULTS: Among the 18 included studies, AI models demonstrated strong performance across diagnostic tasks in the BM-SRS pathway. The differentiation of RN from true tumor progression was the most extensively studied application, addressed by 14 of 18 studies, with reported AUCs ranging from 0.71 to 0.94. Support vector machines, random-forest ensembles, convolutional neural networks, and transformer-based multimodal architectures were widely used. The literature evolved from single-sequence radiomic classifiers in 2018 to multimodal deep learning frameworks fusing imaging with clinical and genomic data in 2025. Contrast-enhanced T1-weighted MRI was the dominant imaging input, and texture-based radiomic features (GLCM, GLSZM, GLDM, and wavelet-derived features) were the most consistently predictive. The highest-performing models reached AUCs of 0.85-0.91 through multimodal integration of imaging with clinical and genomic features, and consistently outperformed expert neuroradiologist read on matched cases. Remaining studies addressed longitudinal segmentation-based detection of local failure and adverse radiation effects, BRAF mutation status in melanoma BM, early Gamma Knife treatment response, and primary tumor histology classification, with more variable performance. CONCLUSION: AI models, particularly those integrating MRI-derived radiomic features with clinical and genomic data, show high accuracy in supporting diagnostic decisions for BM patients treated with SRS. The post-SRS differentiation of radiation necrosis from true tumor progression has reached the greatest level of maturity and is closest to clinical translation, with potential to reduce unnecessary biopsies, personalize surveillance intervals, and rationalize treatment-pathway decisions. Other diagnostic applications, including molecular subtyping and primary tumor histology classification, remain exploratory and require further multicenter validation. Integration of AI tools into multidisciplinary tumor-board workflows, combined with prospective validation and standardized reporting, will be essential to realize the full clinical benefits of AI in SRS for brain metastases.

Humans↗

Reconstructing the 3D genome organization of Neanderthals reveals that chromatin folding shaped phenotypic and sequence divergence.

Changes in gene regulation were a major driver of the divergence of archaic hominins (AHs)-Neanderthals and Denisovans-and modern humans (MHs). The three-dimensional (3D) folding of the genome is critical for regulating gene expression; however, its role in recent human evolution has not been explored because the degradation of ancient samples does not permit experimental determination of AH 3D genome folding. To fill this gap, we apply novel deep learning methods for inferring 3D genome organization from DNA sequence to Neanderthal, Denisovan, and diverse MH genomes. Using the resulting 3D contact maps across the genome, we identify 167 distinct regions with diverged 3D genome organization between AHs and MHs. We show that these 3D-diverged loci are enriched for genes related to the function and morphology of the eye, supra-orbital ridges, hair, lungs, immune response, and cognition. Despite these specific diverged loci, the 3D genome of AHs and MHs is more similar than expected based on sequence divergence, suggesting that the pressure to maintain 3D genome organization constrained hominin sequence evolution. We also find that 3D genome organization constrained the landscape of AH ancestry in MHs today: regions more tolerant of 3D variation are enriched for introgression in modern Eurasians. Finally, we identify loci where modern Eurasians have inherited novel 3D genome folding patterns from AH ancestors and validate folding differences in a high-frequency locus using Hi-C, revealing a putative molecular mechanism for phenotypes associated with archaic introgression. In summary, our application of deep learning to predict archaic 3D genome organization illustrates the potential of inferring molecular phenotypes from ancient DNA to reveal previously unobservable biological differences.

Journal Article↗

Inferring Gene Regulatory Networks in Stem Cells: Methods and Applications.

Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) represent the complex interplay of transcription factors, regulatory elements, and target genes that orchestrate cellular identity and function, playing a crucial role in the differentiation and maintenance of stem cells. This chapter provides an overview of experimental and computational methodologies for inferring GRNs, with particular emphasis on single-cell approaches. We first review key experimental techniques for detecting transcription factor binding sites, chromatin accessibility, and DNA motifs, alongside essential databases that support GRN reconstruction. We then introduce computational inference methods that can be categorized into four principal frameworks: correlation-based approaches, regression and machine learning models, probabilistic and deep learning methods, and integrative or message-passing frameworks. To illustrate practical application, we present a case study applying the pySCENIC workflow to a peripheral blood mononuclear cell single-cell RNA sequencing dataset from mouse, demonstrating how regulon-based analysis can reveal cell-type-specific regulatory programs. This chapter aims to serve as a practical guide for researchers seeking to understand and implement GRN inference methodologies in stem cell biology and related fields.

Gene Regulatory Networks↗