Fig. 3: Differential response to DEX within functional gene sets.

Gene ontology enrichment was performed on the significantly differentially expressed genes (Adj. p < 0.05) from vehicle to 2.5 nM DEX in PTSD- participants and were parsed by (a) downregulated genes and (b) up-regulated genes. (c) Gene set preservation analysis was performed on all gene sets with significant enrichment results (Table S4) to identify gene sets with the most differential response to DEX between PTSD− and PTSD+ participants. Randomly selected groupings of genes matching the same number of genes within each gene set were also permuted to provide n preservation-based estimate of what is expect by chance. Six gene sets displayed no preservation (Z_summary < 2) between PTSD+ compared to PTSD- participants. d–f Z-scaled expression data examines the average expression profiles across vehicle, 2.5 nM, 5 nM, and 50 nM concentrations of DEX for three gene sets with differential responses to DEX, including d norepinephrine neurotransmitter release, e glucocorticoid biosynthesis and f IL-7 signaling. Increased response at 2.5 nM of DEX was observed for norepinephrine neurotransmitter release and glucocorticoid biosynthesis while decreased response at 2.5 nM DEX was observed for IL-7 signaling. Red lines indicate genes that increase with expression and blue lines indicate genes that decrease in expression. Dots represent averages across all samples.