Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology

An Exploratory Analysis of Conservation of Co-Expressed Genes across Alzheimer's disease Progression

Abstract

Pradeep Chowriappa, Prerna Dua and Walter J Lukiw

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complex disease where the analysis of gene expression patterns relies on computational techniques to understand the cause and progression of the disease. Evidence postulates that the complexity of AD stems from the overlap of early-stage markers with normal aging. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence suggesting that gene co-regulation in AD plays a vital role in the progression of the disease. The aim of this work is to identify and track co-regulated genes from incipient to severe cases of AD i.e. samples that exhibited progression of AD. We hypothesize that co-expressed genes associated with two markers of AD (the cognitive marker-mini mental state examination (MMSE) and the pathological marker Neurofibrillary Tangles (NFT)), are conserved across AD progression. For our analysis we used the Blalock dataset and the prominent tool weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA). Through our analysis we observed that genes GNA11 and MAP2K2 were consistently ranked through the progression of AD. The functional analysis of the identified co-regulated genes at the incipient stages of AD includes RNA and cofactor binding. Through this exploratory study we conclude that from incipient to severe stages of AD the gamut of co-regulated genes vary rather than being conserved across disease severity.