HeRA

HeRA maps the expression landscape of enhancer RNAs (eRNAs), long non-coding RNAs transcribed from DNA enhancer regions, across 54 human tissues to enable analysis of their roles in gene regulation and associations with human traits and diseases.

Key Features:

• Data source: Uses data from the Genotype-Tissue Expression project covering 54 human tissues and 45,411 detectable eRNAs.
• eRNA definition: Explicitly catalogs enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) as long non-coding RNAs transcribed from DNA enhancer regions.
• Expression profiles: Provides tissue-resolved expression profiles of eRNAs across multiple human tissues.
• Associated traits: Reports associations between eRNAs and phenotypic traits including gender, race, and age.
• Potential regulators: Constructs co-expression networks that identify millions of putative regulators of eRNAs across tissues.
• Potential target genes: Predicts target genes potentially influenced by eRNAs to support gene-regulatory inference.

Scientific Applications:

• Tissue-specific expression analysis: Characterizing eRNA expression patterns across 54 human tissues to study tissue specificity.
• Trait association studies: Linking eRNAs to phenotypic variables such as gender, race, and age to investigate trait-related regulation.
• Regulatory network inference: Using co-expression networks to identify putative regulators of eRNAs and infer regulatory relationships.
• Target gene prediction: Identifying potential target genes of eRNAs to support studies of gene regulation and mechanistic hypotheses.

Methodology:

Analyzed Genotype-Tissue Expression project data across 54 tissues to detect 45,411 eRNAs, constructed co-expression networks identifying millions of putative regulators, performed association analyses linking eRNAs to traits (gender, race, age), and predicted potential target genes.