Figure 3

Close similarities in disease-related gene expression changes in kidneys at 36 and 42 weeks of age. Between the 42-week diseased group and the asymptomatic group with false discovery rate (FDR) p < 0.05 and average fold change more than 1.5, 1141 probe sets were identified to be differentially expressed. Average fold changes of these 1141 probe sets for the 42-week comparison with the asymptomatic group are shown on the X axis. The average fold changes for the 36-week comparison with the asymptomatic group are on the Y axis. Note, that although the magnitude of the changes at 42 weeks tended to be slightly larger than those at 36 weeks, the direction of change of all 1141 probe sets was the same and the magnitude of the changes are very well correlated (Pearson correlation = 0.97). The criteria used to identify 1141 probe sets are more relaxed than those used to identify lupus nephritis genes. This was to show that even the smaller changes (1.5 versus twofold change) observed in this model are well correlated at 36 weeks and 42 weeks.