Mediaspace scheduled maintenance: Aug 25, 2026 07:00 - 12:00 AM. During this time, videos will be temporarily unavailable. Check status updates.

Lecture

How to Interpret Gene Expression Heat Maps

Description

This lecture provides a tutorial on interpreting gene expression heat maps from the Allen Institute for Brain Science. It covers topics such as brain structures, gene symbols, p-values, and fold changes, offering insights into the analysis of gene expression data.

Official source

Related concepts (22)

Brain

A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a vertebrate's body. In a human, the cerebral cortex contains approximately 14–16 billion neurons, and the estimated number of neurons in the cerebellum is 55–70 billion. Each neuron is connected by synapses to several thousand other neurons.

Human brain

The human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs, and making decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The brain is contained in, and protected by, the skull bones of the head.

Gene expression

Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, proteins or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype. These products are often proteins, but in non-protein-coding genes such as transfer RNA (tRNA) and small nuclear RNA (snRNA), the product is a functional non-coding RNA.

Gene expression profiling

In the field of molecular biology, gene expression profiling is the measurement of the activity (the expression) of thousands of genes at once, to create a global picture of cellular function. These profiles can, for example, distinguish between cells that are actively dividing, or show how the cells react to a particular treatment. Many experiments of this sort measure an entire genome simultaneously, that is, every gene present in a particular cell. Several transcriptomics technologies can be used to generate the necessary data to analyse.

Regulation of gene expression

Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are widely observed in biology, for example to trigger developmental pathways, respond to environmental stimuli, or adapt to new food sources. Virtually any step of gene expression can be modulated, from transcriptional initiation, to RNA processing, and to the post-translational modification of a protein.

Related lectures (34)

Data available from the Allen human brain atlases

Covers the data available from the Allen human brain atlases, including gene expression analysis and the BrainSpan Atlas.

BrainSpan Atlas of Developing Human Brain

Covers the BrainSpan Atlas, mapping gene expression in the developing human brain.

The difficulty of dissociating cells in human brain

Discusses the diversity of neocortical neurons, challenges in dissociating human brain cells, and the evolution of expanded neocortex across mammals.

Using AGEA in the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas

Introduces the Anatomic Gene Expression Atlas (AGEA) for exploring gene expression patterns in the mouse brain.

Performing a search in the Allen Brain Atlas