Major patterns of mRNA and miRNA changes with age. (A) Shows the average expression levels in eight coexpressed gene groups (see Methods). Dark blue points represent the mean expression level of all genes in a group per individual. The y-axis shows standardized expression levels, where each unit indicates one standard deviation difference from the mean. The x-axis shows age of individuals on (age)¼ scale (i.e., the fourth root scale, which provided optimal resolution of expression changes during both developmental and adulthood periods). Bold vertical bars indicate the 25%–75% quantile range, and thin bars indicate the 2.5%–97.5% quantile range. Mean expression change with age within each group is summarized by spline curves. Green circles, green triangles, and purple crosses show the mean expression levels for the same genes among individuals from two published mRNA data sets (Lu et al. 2004; Somel et al. 2009) (GEO data set accession nos. GSE1572 and GSE11512), and the protein data set from the present study, respectively. (B) Major patterns of miRNA changes with age. Labels are as in A.
