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Full-Text Articles in Genetics and Genomics

System Genetic Analysis Of Mechanisms Underlying Excessive Alcohol Consumption, Maren L. Smith Jan 2016

System Genetic Analysis Of Mechanisms Underlying Excessive Alcohol Consumption, Maren L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Increased alcohol consumption over time is one of the characteristic symptoms of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). The molecular mechanisms underlying this escalation in intake is still the subject of study. However, the mesocortical and mesolimbic dopamine pathways, and the extended amygdala, because of their involvement in reward and reinforcement are believed to play key roles in these behavioral changes. Multiple gene expression studies have shown that alcohol affects the expression of thousands of genes in the brain. The studies discussed in this document use the systems biology technique of co-expression network analysis to attempt to find

patterns within genome-wide expression …


Investigating The Molecular Etiologies Of Sporadic Als (Sals) Using Rna-Sequencing, David G. Brohawn Jan 2016

Investigating The Molecular Etiologies Of Sporadic Als (Sals) Using Rna-Sequencing, David G. Brohawn

Theses and Dissertations

ALS is an often lethal disease involving degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Current treatments only extend life by several months, and novel therapies are needed. We combined RNA-Sequencing, systems biology analyses, and molecular biology assays to elucidate sporadic ALS group-specific differences in postmortem cervical spinal sections (7 sALS and 8 control samples) that may be relevant to disease pathology. >55 million 2X150 RNA-sequencing reads per sample were generated and processed.

In Chapter 2, we used bioinformatics tools to identify nuclear differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between our two groups. Further, we used Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network …