Abstract </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#0000EF" vlink="#CF30CF" alink="#FF0000" nosave> <br> <center><h2> Functional organization of the transcriptome in human brain </h2> <br> <h2> Michael Oldham </h2> <h3> (UC Los Angeles) </h3> </center> <br> Microarrays have emerged as a powerful tool for exploring the functional identities of tissues by enabling comparisons at the level of the transcriptome. In the brain, transcriptional profiling is complicated by significant cellular heterogeneity, which can cloud the interpretation of microarray data and limit the understanding of functional context. New analytical methods that treat microarray data as a holistic system instead of a collection of discrete measurements have shown great promise in illuminating the higher-order structure of biological networks. Here we apply one such method, weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA), to microarray data derived from human cerebral cortex, caudate nucleus, and cerebellum. We provide an integrated view of the transcriptome in each brain region through detailed exploration of gene coexpression relationships. We demonstrate that the network structure of gene coexpression in human cerebral cortex is highly reproducible across individuals and microarray platforms. Through comparisons with caudate nucleus and cerebellum, we identify many aspects of network structure that are conserved across brain regions, and some that are not. We characterize modules of coexpressed genes that correspond to each of the major cell classes of the brain: neurons, oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, and microglia. Other modules distinguish additional cell types, organelles, synaptic function, and gender differences. Our analysis provides a new foundation for neurogenetic inquiries and reveals the existence of a previously unrecognized functional organization to the human brain transcriptome. <br><br><br> <a href="index.html">Back to main page</a><br><br> <hr> <p><br><br>  <script type="text/javascript"> var sc_project=2800657; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_partition=28; var sc_security="dd1187b0"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter_xhtml.js"></script><noscript><div class="statcounter"><a class="statcounter" href="http://www.statcounter.com/"><img class="statcounter" src="http://c29.statcounter.com/2800657/0/dd1187b0/0/" alt="free stats" /></a></div></noscript>  </body> </html>