Fig. 3

Unsupervised analysis of the most changed genes in the breast in participants following intermittent energy restriction (IER) and continuous energy restriction (CER) compared with changes in peripheral blood lymphocyctes and abdominal fat. The 100 genes with the highest variance in changed gene expression in breast tissue following IER are shown in a. The same genes in the lymphocytes from IER participants (b), the breast in women undertaking CER (c) and subcutaneous abdominal fat (d) in women undertaking CER are shown for comparison. Subjects on IER (blue) represent responders, grey represents non-responders. Participants on CER are shown in orange and non-dieting controls in black. The heatmap shows relative paired log2 changes in gene expression (after compared to before), green = downregulation, red = upregulation, black = no change. In the IER responders there was downregulation of many metabolic genes similar to women undertaking CER. In the IER responders some genes are also upregulated. The IER non-responders had expression profiles similar to women who were non-diet controls (black in c). The 100 genes with the highest variance were only minimally changed in peripheral blood lymphocytes (b) or subcutaneous abdominal fat (d)