Figure 1

a. Flow chart overview of methods and b. subsets of patients analyzed at each step. We first constructed a co-expression network based on 127 CFS samples and then identified a CFS severity-related module using a subset of 87 patients with CFS severity scores. We then related the SNPs and connectivities to the module gene expressions in both the males and homogenized female samples separately. We selected candidate genes based on 1) association with a SNP that in turn was associated with severity, 2) connectivity, and 3) association with severity in both sexes. We then repeated analysis steps 1–5 on a second data set.