Fig. 6.
Significant changes in the expression of genes associated with mammalian neural stem cells and neurodegeneration pathways are observed during aging. (A) DE putative homologous genes associated with neurodegenerative disease are DE in zooid’s brain belonging to colonies with different ages (young: 5 mo; old: 7 and 16 y). Categories are indicated based on the link that the gene has with the neurodegenerative disease (brown: genes having a genetic variation in patients with the disease; yellow: genes DE in patients with the diseases compared to the healthy controls; green: genes identified by scientific literature, cancer mutation data, and genome-wide association studies). (B) Putative homologous genes associated with mammal neural stem cells are expressed in zooid brains belonging to colonies of different ages (young: 5 mo; old: 7 and 16 y) and in brains at day 1 and 5 of the weekly cycle. Color scales depicts log2CPM normalized expression values scaled by row. *Indicates different sequences that are putative homologous to the same gene.