Gut microbiota participate in many functional metabolic pathways through which nutrient digestion and absorption, lipid metabolism, and hormone biosynthes are influenced24.
In this cascade network, IFNγ- and IL-4-regulated pro-/anti-inflammatory genes as core genes (red) connected with many different functional pathways through key genes.
Analyzing the proteins of a biological system gives the opportunity to understand and reveal the intricacies of many cellular functional pathways, inaccessible through genomic or transcriptomic studies.
Apparently, the lipofuscin-correlated transcripts were overrepresented in many more functional pathways than the 1000 FDR-ranked chronological genes, resulting in an increase in the number of functional (mostly immune-related) pathways.
This study is expected to provide convincing evidence that electro-acupuncture at Neiguan has protective effects against angina, and that many functional genes and pathways contribute to such effects.
Despite the extreme genetic heterogeneity, many genes converge in functional pathways, giving insights into the underlying pathophysiology and providing therapeutic targets.
Regardless of the difference in species, life stage, and duration of temperature exposure, many of the same functional pathways were upregulated in both the current and above studies, namely protein stabilization/degradation, apoptosis, and immunity/inflammation.
Metabolites involved in a number of pathways usually have many functional partners, while other metabolites only participate in a few pathways and thus have few functional-compensation partners.
Overall, the 454 sequencing approach verified the primary results from the microarray analysis and identified many new candidate genes and functional pathways that are associated with limb regeneration.
