Gene Perturbation Atlas (GPA): a single-gene perturbation repository for characterizing functional mechanisms of coding and non-coding genes

Genome-wide transcriptome profiling after gene perturbation is a powerful means of elucidating gene functional mechanisms in diverse contexts. The comprehensive collection and analysis of the resulting transcriptome profiles would help to systematically characterize context-dependent gene functional mechanisms and conduct experiments in biomedical research. To this end, we collected and curated over 3000 transcriptome profiles in human and mouse from diverse gene perturbation experiments, which involved 1585 different perturbed genes (microRNAs, lncRNAs and protein-coding genes) across 1170 different cell lines/tissues. For each profile, we identified differential genes and their associated functions and pathways, constructed perturbation networks, predicted transcription regulation and cancer/drug associations, and assessed cooperative perturbed genes. Based on these transcriptome analyses, the Gene Perturbation Atlas (GPA) can be used to detect (i) novel or cell-specific functions and pathways affected by perturbed genes, (ii) protein interactions and regulatory cascades affected by perturbed genes, and (iii) perturbed gene-mediated cooperative effects. The GPA is a user-friendly database to support the rapid searching and exploration of gene perturbations. Particularly, we visualized functional effects of perturbed genes from multiple perspectives. In summary, the GPA is a valuable resource for characterizing gene functions and regulatory mechanisms after single-gene perturbations. The GPA is freely accessible at http://biocc.hrbmu.edu.cn/GPA/.