Genes that are co-expressed tend to be involved in the same biological process. However, co-expression is not a very reliable predictor of functional links between genes. The evolutionary conservation of co-expression between species can be used to predict protein function more reliably than co-expression in a single species. Here we examine whether co-expression across multiple species is also a better prioritizer of disease genes than is co-expression between human genes alone.
Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Geert Grooteplein 26-28, 6525 GA, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. m.oti@cmbi.ru.nl
