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Author Spotlight: Exploring Sex-Specific Glial Signatures and Therapeutic Leads for Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: May 20, 2024
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Sex-specific transcriptome similarity networks elucidate comorbidity relationships
Jon Sánchez-Valle1, María Flores-Rodero2,3, Felipe Xavier Costa4,5
1Computational Biology, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain. jon.sanchez@bsc.es.
Communications Medicine
|December 30, 2025
Summary
Biological sex significantly impacts disease co-occurrence, with distinct molecular pathways involved in women and men. Understanding these sex-specific links is crucial for personalized medicine and drug development.
Area of Science:
- Genomics
- Systems Biology
- Precision Medicine
Background:
- Biological sex influences disease prevalence, progression, and outcomes.
- Mechanisms driving sex-specific comorbidity patterns are largely unknown.
- This study investigates molecular underpinnings of sex differences in disease co-occurrence.
Purpose of the Study:
- To uncover molecular processes linked to sex-specific comorbidity.
- To identify sex-dependent disease similarity networks.
- To explore sex-specific drug associations with comorbidities.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of gene expression data across >100 diseases stratified by biological sex.
- Construction of sex-specific disease similarity networks using differential gene expression.
- Comparison of transcriptomic networks with epidemiological comorbidity data.
- Investigation of sex-specific drug associations with comorbid diseases.
Main Results:
- 13-16% of transcriptomic disease similarities are sex-specific.
- Sex-specific similarities explain 53-60% of known sex-biased comorbidities.
- Immune and metabolic pathways are key in female comorbidities; ECM and signal transduction in males.
- Sex-dependent drug associations with comorbidities were identified.
Conclusions:
- Transcriptomic data reveals sex-specific molecular links between diseases.
- Biological sex is a critical factor in disease co-occurrence.
- Sex considerations are vital for designing therapeutic strategies and drug administration.
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