Stacked values of the differences of Z-Scores of only the meta-features of the 4 feature and 6 meta-feature signature.

<p>The signature used in this experiment includes the following meta-features: “EGF-IGFBP-2”, “IL-1-GM-CSF”, “IL-1-IL-11”, “MIP-1d-NT-3”, “PDGF-BB-VEGF-B” and “TNF--ANG-2”. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figures 7A–C</a> present the stacked values of of the differences of Z-Scores in the training, independent test set of samples with AD and NDC samples, and the independent test set with MCI samples that developed and did not develop AD, respectively. The figures show that the stacked values of this panel of 6 meta-features are lower in those patients that will develop clinical symptoms of AD in two to five years. In <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figures 7A–C</a> the samples marked in red are those that developed AD, the samples marked in blue are those that did not develop AD (NDC <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figures 7A–B</a>, and samples that had a MCI and did not develop AD on the <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figure 7C</a>) and the ones marked in green are OD. Since these values correspond to a difference of Z-Scored values, the average is common and cancelled, thus the measured values of each protein are no longer relative to the variation of the other 119, but only of the other protein involved in the meta-feature. It is interesting to notice that this signature, composed only of meta-features, distinguishes well between AD and NDC on both training (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figure 7A</a>) and test with AD and NDC samples (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figure 7B</a>) sets and also on the test set with MCI samples that developed and did not develop AD (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figure 7C</a>). As shown on <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017481#pone-0017481-g007" target="_blank">Figures 7B–C</a>, it is also remarkable that the signature also distinguishes fairly well between samples that developed AD and OD.