Fig. 2. Differential transcriptional response to DEX in PTSD.

DEX-stimulated changes in gene expression were evaluated separately for PTSD− and PTSD+ participants. A clear distinction for gene expression changes that were either suppressed or enhanced for DEX were identified for a PTSD− and b PTSD+ participants. c Quantile-quantile (QQ)-plots demonstrate an observed distribution of p-values, which greatly deviates from the expected uniform distribution across all three concentrations of DEX. The genomic inflation factor (λ, also defined as median X²) was computed to measure deviations of the observed genome-wide distribution of the test statistic from with the expected null distribution. A mean λ of 1 indicates no difference from the expected null distribution, while λ > 1 indicates marked shifts from the expected null distribution. d Concordance of genome-wide log2 fold-changes for all differentially expressed genes (Adj. P < 0.05) were computed in a dose-dependent manner and a linear regression model assessed the overall correspondence between PTSD− and PTSD+ participants. Gold points indicate gene expression changes that are unique to PTSD+ participants. Blue shading indicates a density distribution, whereby an excess of data points are depicted by a denser shading.