Fine-grained cell-type specific association studies with human bulk brain data using a large single-nucleus RNA sequencing based reference panel.

ABSTRACT: Brain disorders are leading causes of disability worldwide. Gene expression studies provide promising opportunities to better understand their etiology but it is critical that expression is studied on a cell-type level. Cell-type specific association studies can be performed with bulk expression data using statistical methods that capitalize on cell-type proportions estimated with the help of a reference panel. To create a fine-grained reference panel for the human prefrontal cortex, we performed an integrated analysis of the seven largest single nucleus RNA-seq studies. Our panel included 17 cell-types that were robustly detected across all studies, subregions of the prefrontal cortex, and sex and age groups. To estimate the cell-type proportions, we used an empirical Bayes estimator that

SUBMITTER: van den Oord EJCG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10415334 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature