ACDC: a general approach for detecting phenotype or exposure associated co-expression

BACKGROUND: Existing module-based differential co-expression methods identify differences in gene-gene relationships across phenotype or exposure structures by testing for consistent changes in transcription abundance. Current methods only allow for assessment of co-expression variation across a singular, binary or categorical exposure or phenotype, limiting the information that can be obtained from these analyses. METHODS: Here, we propose a novel approach for detection of differential co-expression that simultaneously accommodates multiple phenotypes or exposures with binary, ordinal, or continuous data types. RESULTS: We report an application to two cohorts of asthmatic patients with varying levels of asthma control to identify associations between gene co-expression and asthma control test scores. Results suggest that both expression levels and covariances of ADORA3, ALOX15, and IDO1 are associated with asthma control. CONCLUSION: ACDC is a flexible extension to existing methodology that can detect differential co-expression across varying external variables.