Gap junction and purinergic P2 receptor proteins as a functional unit: insights from transcriptomics.

Gap junctions and purinergic P2 receptors (P2Rs) can be regarded as belonging to a common functional unit, given that they are involved in the transmission of calcium signals between cells. We have previously shown that deletion of the Gja1 gene alters expression levels of numerous genes encoding proteins with diverse functions, including purinergic receptors (P2Rs), and have found that genes synergistically or antagonistically expressed in wild-type tissues are more prone to be similarly or oppositely regulated in Cx43-nulls. We have now explored the use of coordination analysis of gene expression as a strategy to identify interlinked genes encoding functionally related proteins and pull-downs to evaluate their interlinkage.