GEPIA: a web server for cancer and normal gene expression profiling and interactive analyses

TLDR

Large-scale RNA‑seq projects such as TCGA and GTEx have generated vast data, yet existing web servers lack many functions needed by experimental biologists. The authors present GEPIA, a web-based tool that delivers fast, customizable analyses of TCGA and GTEx data. GEPIA offers interactive features such as differential expression, profiling plots, correlation, survival analysis, similar gene detection, and dimensionality reduction. GEPIA streamlines data mining across research areas, bridging cancer genomics data with end‑user analysis, and is freely available online.

Abstract

Tremendous amount of RNA sequencing data have been produced by large consortium projects such as TCGA and GTEx, creating new opportunities for data mining and deeper understanding of gene functions. While certain existing web servers are valuable and widely used, many expression analysis functions needed by experimental biologists are still not adequately addressed by these tools. We introduce GEPIA (Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis), a web-based tool to deliver fast and customizable functionalities based on TCGA and GTEx data. GEPIA provides key interactive and customizable functions including differential expression analysis, profiling plotting, correlation analysis, patient survival analysis, similar gene detection and dimensionality reduction analysis. The comprehensive expression analyses with simple clicking through GEPIA greatly facilitate data mining in wide research areas, scientific discussion and the therapeutic discovery process. GEPIA fills in the gap between cancer genomics big data and the delivery of integrated information to end users, thus helping unleash the value of the current data resources. GEPIA is available at http://gepia.cancer-pku.cn/.