Exploring transcriptomic and genomic latent variable correction approaches in differential expression analysis.

This study demonstrates that simultaneously correcting for both expression-based surrogate variables and genotype-based principal components in differential expression analysis significantly improves cross-dataset replicability and biological recall of known disease genes compared to using either method alone, establishing a combined correction framework as a standard practice for transcriptomic studies with matched genotype data.

Appulingam, Y., Jammal, J., Ali, A. + 4 more2026-04-08💻 bioinformatics

Correlation Between Information Entropy and Functions of Gene Sequences in the Evolutionary Context: A New Way to Construct Gene Regulatory Networks from Sequence

This paper proposes a novel four-layer integrative framework that constructs gene regulatory networks directly from DNA sequences by leveraging information entropy, evolutionary conservation, and deep learning embeddings to bridge nucleotide-level constraints with network-level regulatory logic.

Pan, L., Chen, M., Tanik, M.2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

STDrug enables spatially informed personalized drug repurposing from spatial transcriptomics

STDrug is a novel computational framework that leverages spatial transcriptomics, graph-based modeling, and multimodal learning to overcome the limitations of single-cell approaches by capturing tissue microenvironment context, thereby enabling more accurate, patient-specific drug repurposing for cancers like hepatocellular and prostate carcinoma.

Yang, Y., Unjitwattana, T., Zhou, S. + 10 more2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

Locat: Joint enrichment and depletion testing identifies localized marker genes in single-cell transcriptomics

The paper introduces Locat, a novel framework that identifies highly specific marker genes in single-cell transcriptomics by jointly testing for expression enrichment within compact cellular regions and depletion elsewhere, thereby enabling robust, interpretable, and batch-free cross-condition comparisons of cell populations and developmental trajectories.

Lewis, W. R., Aizenbud, Y., Strino, F. + 2 more2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

A Context-Aware Single-Cell Proteomics Analysis pipeline.

This paper introduces CASPA, an automated, end-to-end pipeline for single-cell proteomics that overcomes existing analytical limitations through adaptive quality control, entropy-guided batch correction, and a refined large language model framework for context-aware cell type annotation, achieving high accuracy validated against orthogonal ground truth across diverse biological datasets.

Salomo Coll, C., Makar, A. N., Brenes, A. J. + 5 more2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

DrugPlayGround: Benchmarking Large Language Models and Embeddings for Drug Discovery

The paper introduces DrugPlayGround, a novel framework designed to objectively benchmark and evaluate the performance of large language models in generating accurate descriptions of drug characteristics and interactions while collaborating with domain experts to validate their chemical and biological reasoning capabilities for advancing drug discovery.

Liu, T., Jiang, S., Zhang, F. + 3 more2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

Integrative AlphaFold Modeling, Fragment Mapping, and Microsecond Molecular Dynamics Reveal Ligand-Specific Structural Plasticity at the Human Urotensin II Receptor

By integrating AlphaFold modeling, fragment mapping, and microsecond molecular dynamics simulations, this study reveals how the human urotensin II receptor exhibits ligand-specific structural plasticity, where subtle differences between hUII and URP induce distinct conformational constraints and signaling outcomes through unique interaction networks.

Torbey, A. G.2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

MitoChontrol: Adaptive mitochondrial filtering for robust single-cell RNA sequencing quality control

MitoChontrol is a novel, cell-type-aware probabilistic framework that improves single-cell RNA sequencing quality control by dynamically defining mitochondrial filtering thresholds based on cluster-specific distributions, thereby more accurately distinguishing compromised cells from biologically viable populations than traditional fixed-threshold methods.

Strassburg, C., Pitlor, D., Singhi, A. D. + 2 more2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

Flow molecular dynamics simulations reveal mechanosensitive regulation of von Willebrand factor through glycan-modulated autoinhibitory modules

This study utilizes flow molecular dynamics simulations to demonstrate how hydrodynamic forces drive von Willebrand factor from an autoinhibited compact state to an activated extended conformation, revealing the specific roles of glycan-modulated autoinhibitory modules in mechanosensitive regulation.

Richard Louis, N. E. L., Zhao, Y. C., Ju, L. A.2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

CPS: Mapping Physical Coordinates to High-Fidelity Spatial Transcriptomics via Privileged Multi-Scale Context Distillation

The Cell Positioning System (CPS) is a novel context-aware implicit neural representation framework that leverages privileged multi-scale context distillation to map physical coordinates to high-fidelity spatial transcriptomics, effectively overcoming data sparsity and noise to achieve state-of-the-art imputation, denoising, super-resolution, and interpretability with linear computational scalability.

Zhang, L., Cao, K., Zheng, S. + 2 more2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics

AI predictions and the expansion of scientific frontiers: Evidence from structural biology

Leveraging the 2021 release of AlphaFold2 as a quasi-experiment, this study demonstrates that AI predictions can expand scientific frontiers by reversing the decline in research on novel proteins and redirecting collective attention toward understudied genes and targets, thereby challenging concerns that AI merely reinforces established scientific canons.

Sun, M., Choi, S., Yin, Y.2026-04-07💻 bioinformatics