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Fig. 2 | Genome Medicine

Fig. 2

From: Inter-tissue coexpression network analysis reveals DPP4 as an important gene in heart to blood communication

Fig. 2

Schema depicting the novel strategy for generating genetically decorrelated inter-tissue networks and deriving modules of genes important in inter-tissue interactions that are driven by biological signal exchanges instead of their common genetic basis. The black line between gene K’ and J’ denotes the undesired correlation due to shared genetic basis, which will be removed after decorrelation. Red lines denote genuine correlations due to non-genetic biological interactions. A gene module detection strategy is used to claim a set of genes, namely module M, in tissue B is correlated with a gene, namely K’ in tissue A. We hypothesize that asymmetric inter-tissue correlations, whereby a gene in one tissue is asymmetrically correlated to a group of genes in a second tissue, may indicate interesting unidirectional interactions between tissues. If gene K’ is correlated with module M while the average number of correlations between members in M and other genes in tissue A is much lower than the links between K’ and M, we report this asymmetric association. Biological function associated with these unidirectional interactions is determined by gene ontology enrichment analysis, which provides insight into systemic pathway coordination

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