Fig. 3

Gene expression and pathway analysis of sepsis patients ≥ 70 (n = 168) versus sepsis patients < 50 years of age (n = 88) with validation in and comparison to two independent cohorts (validation sepsis CAP cohort and healthy cohort). A Volcano plot portraying 5505 differentially expressed genes; 2852 higher and 2653 lower expressed genes in sepsis patients ≥ 70 years compared to sepsis patients < 50 years. The top 10 differentially expressed genes are labelled. B For each available gene, the mean gene expression in sepsis patients ≥ 70 years was correlated to the mean gene expression of that gene in patients < 50 years. The overall mean gene expression in sepsis patients ≥ 70 years was strongly correlated to the overall mean gene expression of sepsis patients < 50 years (Rho = 0.993). For every Reactome host response pathway of interest, the top 5 differentially expressed unique genes per pathway were colored. C Heat map of top 10 significantly differentially expressed genes in sepsis patients ≥ 70 compared to sepsis patients < 50 years. D Reactome Pathway analysis of all three cohorts (Discovery MARS sepsis cohort, validation sepsis CAP cohort, healthy cohort). The magnitude of expression is portrayed using Normalized Enrichment Scores. Red bars represent a significantly higher overall expression of that pathway in individuals ≥ 70 years compared to < 50 years. Blue bars represent a significantly lower overall expression of that pathway in individuals ≥ 70 years compared to < 50 years. Grey bars represent non-significantly different expressed pathways. The parent pathways are portrayed with increased density and followed by the contributing children pathways. The Reactome pathway: “Class I MHC mediated antigen processing & presentation” was abbreviated to “MHC class I antigen presentation”. The Reactome pathway “DDX58/IFIH1-mediated induction of interferon-alpha/beta” was abbreviated to “DDX58/IFIH1-mediated induction of interferon”