HeRA: An atlas of enhancer RNAs across human tissues

Zhao Zhang, Wei Hong, Hang Ruan, Ying Jing, Shengli Li, Yaoming Liu, Jun Wang, Wenbo Li, Lixia Diao, Leng Han

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

Enhancer RNA (eRNA) is a type of long non-coding RNA transcribed from DNA enhancer regions. Despite critical roles of eRNA in gene regulation, the expression landscape of eRNAs in normal human tissue remains unexplored. Using numerous samples from the Genotype-Tissue Expression project, we characterized 45 411 detectable eRNAs and identified tens of thousands of associations between eRNAs and traits, including gender, race, and age. We constructed a co-expression network to identify millions of putative eRNA regulators and target genes across different tissues. We further constructed a user-friendly data portal, Human enhancer RNA Atlas (HeRA, https://hanlab.uth.edu/HeRA/). In HeRA, users can search, browse, and download the eRNA expression profile, trait-related eRNAs, and eRNA co-expression network by searching the eRNA ID, gene symbol, and genomic region in one or multiple tissues. HeRA is the first data portal to characterize eRNAs from 9577 samples across 54 human tissues and facilitates functional and mechanistic investigations of eRNAs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)D932-D938
JournalNucleic acids research
Volume49
Issue numberD1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 8 2021

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Genetics

MD Anderson CCSG core facilities

  • Bioinformatics Shared Resource

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