O papel modulador do gene AIRE - capes

Gene networksAs previously mentioned, the data of the significantly expressed genesrevealed by the SAM statistics were input into the GeneNetwork 1.2 program tovisualize their possible relationships during thymus development.The early thymus (14 vs 15 days p.c.) was the most dynamic in terms of geneinteractions. Of the 104 differentially expressed genes in this phase, a set of 21were found to participate in this network; these represent gene nodes (Fig. 1a).The subsequent days of development featured 12 gene nodes at 14 vs 16days p.c. (Fig. 1b) and eight gene nodes at 14 vs 17 days p.c. (Fig. 1c),participating in their respective networks. The remaining 83 (14 vs 15 days p.c.),51 (14 vs 16 days p.c.) and 31 genes (14 vs 17 days p.c.), althoughdifferentially expressed, do not appear in these networks.Four possible types of interactions were observed between gene nodesparticipating in the networks. The first type was positive interaction, i.e. when agene g positively regulated a gene h (g → h), the second was a negativeinteraction, i.e. when a gene g negatively regulated a gene h (g → h), the thirdfeatured simultaneous positive interactions, i.e. when a gene g positivelyregulated a gene h and vice-versa (g ↔ h) and the fourth was a positive selfinteraction,i.e. when a gene g positively regulated itself (g ↔ g).DiscussionTwo widely used methods for microarray data analysis are the Cluster-and-Tree View [9], which is based on a mathematical description of similarity andthe organization of gene expression data is realized by grouping together geneswith similar patterns of expression (hierarchical clustering), and the Significance245