An RNASeq normal tissue atlas for mouse and rat

The function of a gene is closely connected to its expression specificity across tissues and cell types. RNA-Seq is a powerful quantitative tool to explore genome wide expression. The aim of the present study is to provide a comprehensive RNA-Seq dataset across the same 13 tissues for mouse and rat, two of the most relevant species for biomedical research. The dataset provides the transcriptome across tissues from three male C57BL6 mice and three male Han Wistar rats. We also describe our bioinformatics pipeline to process and technically validate the data. Principal component analysis shows that tissue samples from both species cluster similarly. By comparative genomics we show that many genes with high sequence identity with respect to their human orthologues have also a highly correlated tissue distribution profile and are in agreement with manually curated literature data for human. These results make us confident that the present study provides a unique resource for comparative genomics and will facilitate the analysis of tissue specificity and cross-species conservation in higher organisms.