GeneGini: Assessment via the Gini Coefficient of Reference “Housekeeping” Genes and Diverse Human Transporter Expression Profiles



O'Hagan, Steve, Muelas, Marina Wright, Day, Philip J, Lundberg, Emma and Kell, Douglas B ORCID: 0000-0001-5838-7963
(2018) GeneGini: Assessment via the Gini Coefficient of Reference “Housekeeping” Genes and Diverse Human Transporter Expression Profiles. Cell Systems, 6 (2). 230-244.E1.

Access the full-text of this item by clicking on the Open Access link.

Abstract

The expression levels of SLC or ABC membrane transporter transcripts typically differ 100- to 10,000-fold between different tissues. The Gini coefficient characterizes such inequalities and here is used to describe the distribution of the expression of each transporter among different human tissues and cell lines. Many transporters exhibit extremely high Gini coefficients even for common substrates, indicating considerable specialization consistent with divergent evolution. The expression profiles of SLC transporters in different cell lines behave similarly, although Gini coefficients for ABC transporters tend to be larger in cell lines than in tissues, implying selection. Transporter genes are significantly more heterogeneously expressed than the members of most non-transporter gene classes. Transcripts with the stablest expression have a low Gini index and often differ significantly from the “housekeeping” genes commonly used for normalization in transcriptomics/qPCR studies. PCBP1 has a low Gini coefficient, is reasonably expressed, and is an excellent novel reference gene. The approach, referred to as GeneGini, provides rapid and simple characterization of expression-profile distributions and improved normalization of genome-wide expression-profiling data.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Humans, Membrane Transport Proteins, ATP-Binding Cassette Transporters, Gene Expression Profiling, Sequence Analysis, Computational Biology, Genes, Essential, Genes, Regulator, Algorithms, Software, Databases, Genetic, Transcriptome
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 13 Feb 2019 15:47
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:03
DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2018.01.003
Open Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2018.01.003
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3032789