Figure 4

CD39 expression negatively correlates with FAM134B expression in whole blood. (A) Correlation between CD39 and FAM134B expression in whole blood in three Caucasian cohorts. The most significant FAM134B Illumina probe is plotted here with respect to the unique CD39 Illumina probe. A consistent negative correlation between the two genes was apparent in all cohorts (P < 0.001). (B) FAM134B expression is affected by CD39 levels in whole blood. Samples were classified according to their CD39 expression levels (CD39lo, CD39int, CD39hi) using unsupervised clustering (see Additional file 7: Figure S4) and FAM134B expression across the three groups was compared using Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparison tests. CD39hi individuals were characterized by a significantly lower FAM134B expression than CD39lo individuals (P _{krusal-wallis}  < 0.0001, P _{CD39lo vs CD39hi}  < 0.0001).