Fig. 1

Overview of the MONSTER approach, as applied to the transition between smokers and those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). MONSTER’s approach seeks to find the TF×TF transition matrix that best characterizes the state change in network structure between the initial and final biological conditions. Subjects are first divided into two groups based on whether they have COPD or are smokers that have not yet developed clinical COPD. Network inference is then performed separately on each group, yielding a bipartite adjacency matrix connecting transcription factors to genes. Finally, a transition matrix is computed which characterizes the conversion from the consensus Smokers Network to the COPD Network