  A blood cell lineage consists of several consecutive developmental stages
from the pluripotent or multipotent stem cell to a particular stage of
terminally differentiated cells. There is considerable interest in identifying
the key regulatory genes that govern blood cell development from the gene
expression data without considering the underlying network between
transcription factors (TFs) and their target genes. In this study, we introduce
a novel expression pattern that key regulators expose along the differentiation
path. We deploy this pattern to identify the cell-specific key regulators
responsible for the development. As proof of concept, we consider this approach
to data on six developmental stages from mouse embryonic stem cells to
terminally differentiated macrophages.
