Figure 2

Results of the AGEP analysis of microarray data from two Duchenne muscular dystrophy samples against the reference database. A) The sample from patient 3 resembles most closely striated muscle among the 44 reference tissues. B) Alignment of the patient's transcriptome at the level of individual genes. On the x-axis are genes (17 330) and on the y-axis the three most similar tissues. Green color indicates that the genes have an expression level typical for that tissue, whereas red indicates atypical expression levels. Genes have been ordered according to their level of similarity against the most similar tissue (striated muscle). C) View of distinct gene sets and pathways for the most similar tissue (striated muscle). Relative enrichment of atypical genes is shown on the right side to illustrate aberrant gene expression levels for individual patient samples. Genes involved in inflammation response, complement mediated immunity and muscle contraction had more atypical expression levels as compared to healthy striated muscle (198.6, 70.9 and 7.1 fold enrichment of atypical genes, respectively), indicating that these processes were altered in DMD in comparison to healthy muscle. D-F) The gene expression profile from patient 4 resembled mostly striated muscle (primary match), but revealed adipose tissue as the second best matching tissue. As compared to patient 3, this patient had a larger number of muscle typical genes involved in inflammation response, complement mediated immunity and muscle contraction suggesting a less severe disease for patient 4.