Our paper about a consensus transcription factor network of the human brain is out

With this work we aimed at obtaining more insights into the gene regulatory networks of the human prefrontal cortex, which is important for cognitive abilities. Analyzing multiple independent genome-wide expression datasets from healthy individuals we realized that the transcription factor networks derived from them are considerably different. Here we focussed on the network links that were consistently observed across the different datasets by building a consensus network. This allowed us to identify a network module consisting of many transcription factors with known importance for brain development and functions. Our work not only suggests how these transcription factors are interacting and what common target genes of them might be, but also identified not yet characterized transcription factors that seem to be excellent new candidates for playing important roles in the human prefrontal cortex. We hope that with this line of research we will in the long run be able to help uncovering the molecular basis of human cognitive skills.