q-bio.MNMar 19, 2026

GIP-RAG: An Evidence-Grounded Retrieval-Augmented Framework for Interpretable Gene Interaction and Pathway Impact Analysis

Authors: Fujian Jia, Jiwen Gu, Cheng Lu, Dezhi Zhao, Mengjiang Huang, Yuanzhi Lu, Xin Liu, Kang Liu

Organizations: Kanghua Juntai Biotech Co. Ltd., Room 1504, Building 7, Dongwang Jingyuan, No. 768 Jingwang Road, Kunshan, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China · Department of Radiation Oncology, Cancer Treatment Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China · Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis, USA · Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Tianhe Qu, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Understanding mechanistic relationships among genes and their impacts on biological pathways is essential for elucidating disease mechanisms and advancing precision medicine. Despite the availability of extensive molecular interaction and pathway data in public databases, integrating heterogeneous knowledge sources and enabling interpretable multi-step reasoning across biological networks remain challenging. We present GIP-RAG (Gene Interaction Prediction through Retrieval-Augmented Generation), a computational framework that combines biomedical knowledge graphs with large language models (LLMs) to infer and interpret gene interactions. The framework constructs a unified gene interaction knowledge graph by integrating curated data from KEGG, WikiPathways, SIGNOR, Pathway Commons, and PubChem. Given user-specified genes, a query-driven module retrieves relevant subgraphs, which are incorporated into structured prompts to guide LLM-based stepwise reasoning. This enables identification of direct and indirect regulatory relationships and generation of mechanistic explanations supported by biological evidence. Beyond pairwise interactions, GIP-RAG includes a pathway-level functional impact module that simulates propagation of gene perturbations through signaling networks and evaluates potential pathway state changes. Evaluation across diverse biological scenarios demonstrates that the framework generates consistent, interpretable, and evidence-supported insights into gene regulatory mechanisms. Overall, GIP-RAG provides a general and interpretable approach for integrating knowledge graphs with retrieval-augmented LLMs to support mechanistic reasoning in complex molecular systems.

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