tspex

tspex computes tissue-specificity metrics from gene and transcript expression data to identify tissue-specific genes and transcripts.

Key Features:

• Comprehensive metrics: Computes a wide array of tissue-specificity metrics for comparative analysis across tissues.
• Gene and transcript-level analysis: Operates on both gene and transcript expression data to assess tissue specificity at multiple levels.
• Identification of tissue-specific entities: Identifies genes or transcripts with tissue-restricted expression patterns.
• Visualization functions: Includes functions to visualize and inspect tissue-specificity results.

Scientific Applications:

• Tissue expression profiling: Characterizes gene and transcript expression patterns across different tissues to reveal tissue specialization.
• Disease mechanism analysis: Supports investigation of diseases in which tissue-specific expression contributes to pathology.
• Evolutionary biology: Enables exploration of evolutionary questions related to gene function diversification and tissue-specific expression.

Methodology:

Processes gene and transcript expression data to compute various tissue-specificity metrics that quantify how specific a gene's or transcript's expression is to particular tissues.