Human Gene Correlation Analysis: A Tool for the Identification of Transcriptionally Co-Expressed Genes
June 2012
in “
BMC Research Notes
”
TLDR The HGCA tool helps identify genes that work together by analyzing their co-expression patterns.
The document from June 6, 2012, introduces the Human Gene Correlation Analysis (HGCA) tool, which is used to identify transcriptionally co-expressed genes in humans. The HGCA tool calculates the Pearson Correlation Coefficient between probe set signal values from Affymetrix Human Genome Microarray samples, clusters genes using the Neighbour Joining method, and uses a hyper-geometric distribution to identify overrepresented terms in gene annotations. The tool was tested on a dataset of 4,452 samples from 62 different tissues/organs, confirming the co-expression of ribosomal proteins and identifying co-expressed genes for HLA and metallothionein proteins. The HGCA tool, available online, is useful for classifying genes by coexpression and predicting gene function, and it includes a user-friendly web interface for searching and analyzing gene correlations.
