Robust sex differences in human adipose tissue gene expression. (A) The general study design involved analyses of sex-dependent gene expression patterns and sex-dependent genetic regulation of gene expression. (B) Fold changes are shown for 162 genes that were significantly differentially expressed across three data sets (73% of the genes showed elevated expression in females). (C) We found that 162 genes were differentially expressed in a directionally consistent manner across three data sets. Of the 162 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 57% were also differentially expressed in subcutaneous adipose tissues from obese individuals; 15% of the DEGs were differentially expressed in visceral adipose tissue; 43% of the DEGs were differentially expressed in at least one metabolically active tissue (including visceral adipose, liver, skeletal muscle, left ventricle, cardiac atrium, blood, and 13 brain tissues). Of 122 identified murine orthologs, 28% showed differential expression consistent with the DEGs. For all comparisons, differential expression was defined for |fold change| > 5%, FDR < 0.05, and effect direction was required to be consistent across studies.
