Cited by 5,547Genetic Associations and EpidemiologyRNA Research and SplicingGenomics and Chromatin Dynamics

The GTEx Consortium atlas of genetic regulatory effects across human tissues

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The GTEx Consortium, Aguet, François, Anand, Shankara, Ardlie, Kristin G., Gabriel, Stacey, Getz, Gad A., Graubert, Aaron, Hadley, Kane +165 more·2020·Science

Abstract

The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project was established to characterize genetic effects on the transcriptome across human tissues and to link these regulatory mechanisms to trait and disease associations. Here, we present analyses of the version 8 data, examining 15,201 RNA-sequencing samples from 49 tissues of 838 postmortem donors. We comprehensively characterize genetic associations for gene expression and splicing in cis and trans, showing that regulatory associations are found for almost all genes, and describe the underlying molecular mechanisms and their contribution to allelic heterogeneity and pleiotropy of complex traits. Leveraging the large diversity of tissues, we provide insights into the tissue specificity of genetic effects and show that cell type composition is a key factor in understanding gene regulatory mechanisms in human tissues.

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Crossref · 10.1126/science.aaz1776

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  • The CSF variant was not significant in any plasma pQTL dataset or in brain/blood eQTL analyses.

    “The CSF variant was not significant in any plasma pQTL dataset (9–11) or in brain/blood eQTL analyses (3–5).”

    From Low overlap of plasma and CSF protein quantitative trait loci affects protein discovery for neurological disease (2026) · cites this paper as [5]

    The QTL discovery section reports eQTL analyses across tissues, and the Tissue-specificity section identifies brain regions and whole blood among the GTEx tissues. Our copy does not identify the CSF variant or report that it was nonsignificant in those analyses; the plasma pQTL clause is attributed to other citations. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • This variant is in high LD (R2=0.975) with the AD index variant (rs1140239, p.Gly48Ser in DOC2A) and is a strong splicing QTL for DOC2A in brain cortex and cerebellum according to GTEx.

    “This variant is in high LD (R2 = 0.975) with the AD index variant (rs1140239, p.Gly48Ser in DOC2A) and is a strong splicing QTL for DOC2A in brain cortex and cerebellum according to GTEx (5).”

    From Low overlap of plasma and CSF protein quantitative trait loci affects protein discovery for neurological disease (2026) · cites this paper as [5]

    The QTL discovery section reports that GTEx mapped splicing QTLs across tissues, so this is an appropriate source for identifying the GTEx sQTL resource. Our copy does not identify DOC2A as a strong sQTL in brain cortex or cerebellum; searches for DOC2A and rs1140239 also did not substantiate the stated LD value. The specific variant-level claim therefore remains unsupported by this paper's text. (LLM, conf=0.76)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Crucial regulatory elements governing gene expression, such as enhancers and promoters, were consistently detected by all models across multiple heads and layers.

    “Crucial regulatory elements governing gene expression, such as enhancers and promoters41–43, were consistently detected by all models across multiple heads and layers.”
  • 100 protein-coding genes were identified as aortic valve-specific compared to 45 other tissues from GTEx.

    “We identified 100 specific protein-coding genes in the aortic valve compared to 45 other tissues from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project.”
  • GTEx includes too small a sample (<2%) of Hispanic individuals for adequate comparison.

    “Unfortunately, GTEx includes too small of a sample (<2%) of Hispanic individuals for adequate comparison, so these were removed from the GTEx sets and a different control group was used for white Hispanics in the SPARK group [25].”

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  1. [22]Oliva M,, The role of sex in the human transcriptome. bioRxiv (2019).

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Authors
The GTEx Consortium, Aguet, F., Anand, S., Ardlie, K. G., Gabriel, S., Getz, G. A., Graubert, A., Hadley, K., Handsaker, R. E., Huang, K. H., Kashin, S., Li, X., MacArthur, D. G., Meier, S. R., Nedzel, J. L., Nguyen, D. T., Segrè, A. V., Todres, E., Balliu, B., Barbeira, A. N., Battle, A., Bonazzola, R., Brown, A., Brown, C. D., Castel, S. E., Conrad, D. F., Cotter, D. J., Cox, N., Das, S., de Goede, O. M., Dermitzakis, E. T., Einson, J., Engelhardt, B. E., Eskin, E., Eulalio, T. Y., Ferraro, N. M., Flynn, E. D., Fresard, L., Gamazon, E. R., Garrido-Martín, D., Gay, N. R., Gloudemans, M. J., Guigó, R., Hame, A. R., He, Y., Hoffman, P. J., Hormozdiari, F., Hou, L., Im, H. K., Jo, B., Kasela, S., Kellis, M., Kim-Hellmuth, S., Kwong, A., Lappalainen, T., Li, X., Liang, Y., Mangul, S., Mohammadi, P., Montgomery, S. B., Muñoz-Aguirre, M., Nachun, D. C., Nobel, A. B., Oliva, M., Park, Y., Park, Y., Parsana, P., Rao, A. S., Reverter, F., Rouhana, J. M., Sabatti, C., Saha, A., Stephens, M., Stranger, B. E., Strober, B. J., Teran, N. A., Viñuela, A., Wang, G., Wen, X., Wright, F., Wucher, V., Zou, Y., Ferreira, P. G., Li, G., Melé, M., Yeger-Lotem, E., Barcus, M. E., Bradbury, D., Krubit, T., McLean, J. A., Qi, L., Robinson, K., Roche, N. V., Smith, A. M., Sobin, L., Tabor, D. E., Undale, A., Bridge, J., Brigham, L. E., Foster, B. A., Gillard, B. M., Hasz, R., Hunter, M., Johns, C., Johnson, M., Karasik, E., Kopen, G., Leinweber, W. F., McDonald, A., Moser, M. T., Myer, K., Ramsey, K. D., Roe, B., Shad, S., Thomas, J. A., Walters, G., Washington, M., Wheeler, J., Jewell, S. D., Rohrer, D. C., Valley, D. R., Davis, D. A., Mash, D. C., Branton, P. A., Barker, L. K., Gardiner, H. M., Mosavel, M., Siminoff, L. A., Flicek, P., Haeussler, M., Juettemann, T., Kent, W. J., Lee, C. M., Powell, C. C., Rosenbloom, K. R., Ruffier, M., Sheppard, D., Taylor, K., Trevanion, S. J., Zerbino, D. R., Abell, N. S., Akey, J., Chen, L., Demanelis, K., Doherty, J. A., Feinberg, A. P., Hansen, K. D., Hickey, P. F., Jasmine, F., Jiang, L., Kaul, R., Kibriya, M. G., Li, J. B., Li, Q., Lin, S., Linder, S. E., Pierce, B. L., Rizzardi, L. F., Skol, A. D., Smith, K. S., Snyder, M., Stamatoyannopoulos, J., Tang, H., Wang, M., Carithers, L. J., Guan, P., Koester, S. E., Little, A. R., Moore, H. M., Nierras, C. R., Rao, A. K., Vaught, J. B., & Volpi, S.
Affiliations
  • Massachusetts General Hospital (US)
  • University of Chicago (US)
  • Northwestern University (US)
  • King's College London (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Science
Published
2020-09-11
Volume
369
Issue
6509
Pages
1318-1330
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W3133859624
Cited by
5,547
References
133
Citations by year
2026: 1228 · 2025: 1173 · 2024: 1054 · 2023: 762 · 2022: 734 · 2021: 485 · 2020: 99 · 2019: 9 · 2012: 1
FWCI
320.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Repositori digital de la UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
  • Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
  • Discovery Research Portal (University of Dundee) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • UPCommons institutional repository (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (5U41HG002371-19)
  • NIH Office of the Director (R01 MH107666, P30 DK020595, HG002585)
  • National Cancer Institute
  • European Molecular Biology Laboratory
  • NHGRI (R01 HG006855)
  • Leidos Biomedical Research (BOA No. 10XS1035)
  • NIH/NIMH (R01MH101782)
  • Swiss National Science Foundation
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA Research and Splicing
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
Keywords
gene expression regulation, cis-eQTL, trans-eQTL, splicing regulation, allelic heterogeneity, pleiotropy, complex traits, tissue specificity, cell type composition, transcriptome, GTEx
MeSH terms
Disease, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Humans, Male, Organ Specificity, Sequence Analysis, RNA, Quantitative Trait Loci, Genome-Wide Association Study, Datasets as Topic

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