Fig. 4

Gene expression profile from rats clinically affected with prion disease. a. The expression levels of individual genes from uninfected and rats clinically affected with prion disease were plotted. The axis is the expression level from uninfected rats and the y-axis is the corresponding expression level of the gene in infected rats. The green lines indicate 2-fold changes in gene expression. Any points outside of these lines are genes whose expression is deregulated greater than 2-fold. b. Cluster of 81 genes whose expression is up-regulated throughout disease. Clustering was performed using 291 genes whose expression was changed more than 2-fold and with a statistical confidence interval of 90 % using a false positive rate approach. Ontological analysis of this gene cluster is consistent with the involvement of these genes in neuroinflammation. Gene expression profiles were obtained from infected and control rats at three time points. Comparisons between uninfected rats at the three time points did not identify statistically significant changes in gene expression