Comparing NR Expression among Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors

Abstract: The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of metabolic risk factors such as diabetes type II, dyslipidemia, hypertension, obesity, microalbuminurea and insulin resistance, which in the recent years has increased greatly in many parts of the world. In this thesis decision trees were applied to the BioExpress database, including both clinical data about donors and gene expression data, to investigate nuclear receptors ability to serve as markers for the metabolic syndrome. Decision trees were created and the classification performance for each individual risk factor were then analysed. The rules generated from the risk factor trees were compared in order to search for similarities and dissimilarities. The comparisons of rules were performed in pairs of risk factors, in groups of three and on all risk factors and they resulted in the discovery of a set of genes where the most interesting were the Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor - Alpha, the Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor - Gamma and the Glucocorticoid Receptor. These genes existed in pathways associated with the metabolic syndrome and in the recent scientific literature.