A new annotation strategy is introduced based on dimensionality reduction and density-based clustering of whole-body co-expression patterns. This strategy has been used to explore the gene expression landscape in pig, and present a whole-body map of all protein-coding genes in all major pig tissues and organs.

In an article in BMC Biology an open-access pig expression map (www.rnaatlas.org) is presented based on the expression of 350 samples across 98 well-defined pig tissues divided into 44 tissue groups. A new UMAP-based classification scheme is introduced, in which all protein-coding genes are stratified into tissue expression clusters based on body-wide expression profiles. The distribution and tissue specificity of all 22,342 protein-coding pig genes are presented.

The authors present a new approach for genome-wide functional annotation of protein-coding genes based on UMAP clustering to allow annotation of all pig genes based on an expression analysis, here covering 98 tissues and organs. Comparison of protein-coding transcriptomics supported the evolutionally similarity between pig and human, with some tissues showing higher differences, in particular the reproductive tissues. A genome-wide resource of the transcriptome map across all major tissues and organs in pig has been launched and the data is available as an open-access resource called the Pig RNA Atlas (www.rnaatlas.org) with the expression profile of all protein-coding genes across all tissues, including a comparison to the human orthologs. This resource will facilitate future attempts to understand pig biology and to use pig as a model system for human health and disease.

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