Figure 2. CHD8 targets are enriched in an ASD-associated co-expression network.

A gene co-expression network spanning 10–19 post conception weeks (defined as Periods 3–5 in Willsey et al.) was constructed as described13,46, except the set of input genes was further restricted to only include genes exhibiting H3K27ac and/or H3K4me3 promoter marking in hNSCs to match the observed characteristics of CHD8 targets. The resulting network was tested for enrichment of potential ASD genes identified by Willsey et al., and genes with CHD8-binding sites in their promoters. The 20 genes best correlated with each high-confidence ASD gene (‘hcASD gene’) were included in the network provided the correlation value was R≥0.7. The hcASD seed genes are shown as large circles; CHD8 targets are in yellow; and the top 20 genes that are not CHD8 targets are small white circles. The lines (edges) reflect co-expression correlations: positive correlations are in red and negative correlations are in blue.