Differential coexpression in human tissues and the confounding effect of mean expression levels.

ABSTRACT:

Motivation

Differential coexpression-the alteration of gene coexpression patterns observed in different biological conditions-has been proposed to be a mechanism for revealing rewiring of transcription regulatory networks. Despite wide use of methods for differential coexpression analysis, the phenomenon has not been well-studied. In particular, in many applications, differential coexpression is confounded with differential expression, that is, changes in average levels of expression across conditions. This confounding, despite affecting the interpretation of the differential coexpression, has rarely been studied.

Results

We constructed high-quality coexpression networks for five human tissues and identified coexpression links (gene pairs) that were specific to each tissue.

SUBMITTER: Farahbod M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6298061 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature