Fig. 4
Differential and inverse co-expression of gene–gene pairs in orbicularis oculi muscles. a Examples of gene–gene interactions which are significantly correlated in both ophthalmoplegic myasthenia gravis (OP-MG) muscle and control muscle, either positively or negatively, but inversely (i.e. opposite directions; raw data in supplementary Fig. 1a). b Visualization of differentially co-expressed gene–gene pairs in orbicularis oculi muscles in the OP-MG network (p < 0.01). Solid lines indicate positive associations in OP-MG and dashed lines, negative association in OP-MG. The genes in bold are OP-MG genes identified in the whole genome sequencing analysis [6]. c A Venn diagram showing the broad biological categories represented by the most differentially correlated gene–gene transcript levels which are inverse by muscle phenotype (p ≤ 0.0001; supplementary Figure A). d Potential messenger RNA (mRNA) and microRNAs (miRNAs) regulatory networks in extraocular muscle. Differentially downregulated genes in OP-MG orbicularis oculi muscle (Fig. 2) and differentially co-expressed genes (Figs. 3, 4) are listed in the columns to show potential mRNA-miRNA interaction with miRs known to be highly expressed in extraocular muscles (EOMs). OP-MGwes refers to genes identified by whole exome sequencing analysis [5]