IDENTIFYING KEY DRIVER GENES OF INNATE IMMUNE PATHWAYS AS NOVEL THERAPEUTIC TARGETS IN RENAL ALLOGRAFT REJECTION

Acute rejection (AR) in renal transplantation is an established risk factor for reduced allograft survival, and still occurs in 10-20% of allograft recipients despite standard of care immunosuppression. This suggests molecular pathways exist which are inadequately suppressed by current therapy. We describe for the first time, integrative network- based computational strategies incorporating genotyping data to identify key driver genes (KDGs) amongst networks of perturbed transcripts in AR, which may serve as therapeutic targets. A microarray set (N=52) was used for discovery of meta-gene sigantures associated with acute rejection.