{
  "id": 3013614,
  "title": "RevPert: ranking candidate drivers of transcriptomic state transitions via gallery-native reverse perturbation",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/24/revpert-ranking-candidate-drivers-of-transcriptomic-state-transitions",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-08-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.19.745674v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The article introduces RevPert, a reverse perturbation model designed to rank genetic candidate drivers of transcriptomic state transitions. This model combines signed Pearson connectivity with a learned residual to prioritize catalogued genetic perturbations based on their expression signatures, matching observed transcriptomic shifts. RevPert outperformed matched baselines in Replogle Essential Perturb-seq (for four lines) and LINCS-KO screens (for ten lines). When applied to public drug-resistance contrasts in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), RevPert's dual-arm ranking placed pre-specified disease anchors higher on the expected arms compared to ranking the same signatures by differential-expression magnitude alone. This model integrates within-screen reverse ranking with a screen-external signed-geometry check, which calibrates literature anchors and is not meant for held-out recovery.",
  "summary": "Cellular state transitions underlie adaptation, ageing and disease, yet prioritizing catalogued genetic perturbations whose expression signatures match an observed transcriptomic shift remains difficult. Most models predict phenotype from a nominated intervention, whereas genetic inverse benchmarks are largely restricted to within-screen identity recovery. Here we introduce RevPert, a…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}