Meta-analysis of inter-species liver co-expression networks elucidates traits associated with common human diseases.

ABSTRACT: Co-expression networks are routinely used to study human diseases like obesity and diabetes. Systematic comparison of these networks between species has the potential to elucidate common mechanisms that are conserved between human and rodent species, as well as those that are species-specific characterizing evolutionary plasticity. We developed a semi-parametric meta-analysis approach for combining gene-gene co-expression relationships across expression profile datasets from multiple species. The simulation results showed that the semi-parametric method is robust against noise. When applied to human, mouse, and rat liver co-expression networks, our method out-performed existing methods in identifying gene pairs with coherent biological functions. We identified a network conserved across sp

SUBMITTER: Wang K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2787626 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature