A complex network analysis of hypertension-related genes

In this paper, a network of hypertension-related genes is constructed by analyzing the correlations of gene expression data among the Dahl salt-sensitive rat and two consomic rat strains. The numerical calculations show that this sparse and assortative network has small-world and scale-free properties. Further, 16 key hub genes (Col4a1, Lcn2, Cdk4, etc.) are determined by introducing an integrated centrality and have been confirmed by biological/medical research to play important roles in hypertension.