GENT2: an updated gene expression database for normal and tumor tissues

BACKGROUND: Gene Expression database of Normal and Tumor tissues 2 (GENT2) is an updated version of GENT, which has provided a user-friendly search platform for gene expression patterns across different normal and tumor tissues compiled from public gene expression data sets. RESULTS: We refactored GENT2 with recent technologies such as Apache Lucene indexing for fast search and Google Web Toolkit (GWT) framework for a user-friendly web interface. Now, GENT2 contains more than 68,000 samples and has several new useful functions. First, GENT2 now provides gene expression across 72 different tissues compared to 57 in GENT. Second, with increasing importance of tumor subtypes, GENT2 provides an option to study the differential expression and its prognostic significance based on tumor subtypes. Third, whenever available, GENT2 provides prognostic information of a gene of interest. Fourth, GENT2 provides a meta-analysis of survival information to provide users more reliable prognostic value of a gene of interest. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, with these significant improvements, GENT2 will continue to be a useful tool to a wide range of researchers. GENT2 is freely available at http://gent2.appex.kr. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12920-019-0514-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.