The second metagene, further referred to as Alz, consisted of about 200 genes upregulated in AD (Fig. 3). This metagene is enriched in genes involved in cell communication/adhesion, fibrosis, mesoderm development and ossification such as numerous collagen genes, BMP genes, CTSK, MFAP2/4, FN1, VIM, WNT6 and TWIST1 (Table 2, S2, Fig. S4). This metagene also contained several prostaglandin synthases and receptors. Alz positively correlated with both BioAge (ρ = 0.40, p<1E–7) and chronological age (ρ = 0.23, p = 0.002), see also Figure 4. This biomarker score explained 6% of variance in differentially expressed genes and demonstrated AUROC of 0.69 in separating AD and normal samples (Table 1).
