Gene co-expression networks in human brain predict chromatin modifications in alcohol abusers

A novel systems approach was applied to transcriptome profiling that included the traditional analysis of differentially expressed genes, gene co-expression networks, cell type - specific transcriptomes and a wide range of gene annotations. By integrating our data with previous findings, we generated the first systems hypothesis of human alcoholism that integrates epigenetic regulation of gene expression with structural and functional alterations in alcoholic brain. Total RNA was extracted from human post-mortem brain and gene expression profiles were compared between alcoholics and matched controls.