Abstract
We are interested in the causes of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a respiratory complication of preterm birth whose etiology is the subject of ongoing debate. Molecular causes of this disorder, and their potential relationship with lifelong respiratory health, are relatively unexplored. We consider the problem of identifying molecular pathways implicated in BPD and two pulmonary disorders affecting patients at later life stages (asthma and COPD). In this talk, we will define the notion of "pathway centrality" in a molecular network and demonstrate how this concept can be used to find pathways potentially mediating observed expression changes in pulmonary disorders. Our observations identify common molecular pathways and processes between all three disorders, generate novel hypotheses, and highlight developmental delays that may contribute to BPD. A temporal modeling technique based on outlier detection methods lends additional support to the developmental delay hypothesis.