ImmuCo: A database of gene co-expression in immune cells

Abstract

Current gene co-expression databases and correlation networks do not support cell-specific analysis. Gene co-expression and expression correlation are subtly different phenomena, although both are likely to be functionally significant. Here, we report a newdatabase, ImmuCo (http://immuco.bjmu.edu.cn), which is a cell-specific database that contains information about gene co-expression in immune cells, identifying co-expression and correlation between any two genes. The strength of co-expression of queried genes is indicated by signal values and detection calls, whereas expression correlation and strength are reflected by Pearson correlation coefficients. A scatter plot of the signal values is provided to directly illustrate the extent of co-expression and correlation. In addition, the database allows the analysis of cell-specific gene expression profile across multiple experimental conditions and can generate a list of genes that are highly correlated with the queried genes. Currently, the database covers 18 human cell groups and 10 mouse cell groups, including 20 283 human genes and 20 963 mouse genes. More than 8.6 × 108 and 7.4 × 108 probe set combinations are provided for querying each human and mouse cell group, respectively. Sample applications support the distinctive advantages of the database.