title: Gene expression profiling in the human alcoholic brain.
abstract: Long-term alcohol use causes widespread changes in gene expression in the human brain. Aberrant gene expression changes likely contribute to the progression from occasional alcohol use to alcohol use disorder (including alcohol dependence). Transcriptome studies have identified individual gene candidates that are linked to alcohol-dependence phenotypes. The use of bioinformatics techniques to examine expression datasets has provided novel systems-level approaches to transcriptome profiling in human postmortem brain. These analytical advances, along with recent developments in next-generation sequencing technology, have been instrumental in detecting both known and novel coding and non-coding RNAs, alternative splicing events, and cell-type specific changes that may contribute to alcohol-related pathologies. This review offers an integrated perspective on alcohol-responsive transcriptional changes in the human brain underlying the regulatory gene networks that contribute to alcohol dependence. This article is part of the Special Issue entitled "Alcoholism".
authors.affiliation: Institute for Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, C7000, Austin, TX 78712, USA; Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research, The University of Texas at Austin, 2500 Speedway, A4800, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Anna S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Warden
authors.affiliation: Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research, The University of Texas at Austin, 2500 Speedway, A4800, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Electronic address: dayne.mayfield@austin.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: R Dayne
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Mayfield
mesh_terms: D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D059467:Transcriptome
keywords: Alcohol; Co-expression networks; Gene expression; RNA-seq; Transcriptional regulation