Blogging the biotechnology revolution

Systems Biology is changing the way biology is done. Is it a fad or is it effective? This blog tracks current happenings and helps you stay on top of the field. You can find a list of relevant papers at systems biology paper watch Have you heard a talk or read a paper in bioinformatics / systems biology you would like to tell other people about? Email: bioinfblog@gmail.com and get the word out!

Thursday, January 15, 2009


I just ran across an interesting paper in Nature on the genetic basis of tumor susceptibility and skin inflammation. The authors use backcrossed mice to identify eQTLs and mapped these onto a network for co-expression based on various skin expression profiles. The expression profiles highlighted skin specific networks such as keratins. Their analysis suggests to me that using a generic co-expression network would not have given them the results that a "local" co-expression network which is based on skin expression which is the system they are interested in. Overall the paper presents an interesting approach for applying networks to eQTL analysis