ABSTRACT
Identification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) is a key step in comprehending the molecular basis of specific biological processes and screening for disease markers. This methodology looks at absolute changes in gene expression levels, and treats each gene individually. However, genes and their protein products do not perform their functions in isolation, but in coordination [1], and the dynamic switch of a gene from one community to another always implies altered gene function [2,3]. Therefore, gene coexpression analysis was developed to explore gene interconnection at the expression level from a systems perspective [4-10], and 'differential coexpression analysis (DCEA)', as a complementary technique to the traditional 'differential expression analysis' (DEA) [11,12], was designed to investigate molecular mechanisms of phenotypic changes through identifying subtle changes in gene expression coordination [11-14].
