Fig. 3

Combinations of promoter motifs identify age-regulated genes. a Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for combinations of promoter motifs that identify age-regulated genes. Significantly-enriched promoter sequence motifs for up- or downregulated genes were identified using HOMER (40 motifs upregulated genes, 41 motifs downregulated genes; Additional file 6: Table S5). ROC curves representing the diagnostic ability of each motif to identify whether a gene would be up- or downregulated were compared, and the motif with the highest area under the curve (AUC) was iteratively combined with other motifs to identify motif combinations. The maximum AUC values obtained for combinations of motifs are shown. b The AUC values for ROC curves generated by combining increasing numbers of motifs for up- or downregulated genes as described in panel A. The addition of a single motif does not significantly improve the ROC curve (p < 0.05) after the first 14 motifs; we define the first 14 motifs as the top motifs. The maximum AUC value obtained for ROC curves based on 40 randomly-assigned motifs was 0.58 (100 random iterations, see methods)