Chunk #23 — Results — Integrating Genetic and Network Data across Species to Inform GWA Discoveries — Identifying candidate susceptibility genes for T1D.
What the genetic association and atlas data lack is a more refined context within which to assess the functional role a given gene plays in a system. We have previously described a method to reconstruct probabilistic, causal networks by integrating genetic and gene expression data [25,28–30]. Examining candidate susceptibility genes in the context of these networks can provide insights into the pathways in which they operate. We constructed whole-gene networks from three F2 intercross populations constructed from the B6, C3H, and CAST strains (see Methods for details). Liver and adipose expression data were generated from these populations and integrated with the genotypic data also generated in these populations to reconstruct the networks as previously described [28,30]. We then examined RPS26 and ERBB3 in the context of these networks (Figure 1).
