About Nephroseq

Nephroseq is a web-based analysis engine for molecular biology researchers and clinician scientists who study renal disease and related disorders. For scientists who are not bioinformatics experts, it empowers you to access and analyze large datasets of gene expression signatures.

Nephroseq gives access to genome-wide gene expression datasets generated by the renal research community. This tool is especially powerful because the data are already pre-analyzed and the datasets include clinical data.

Transcriptomics is defined as the analysis of mRNA expression in physiology and disease. Transcriptomics analysis helps researchers to identify biomarkers and monitor disease activity. As background to transcriptomics, high-throughput mRNA profiling technologies today have enabled the generation of genome-wide gene expression profiles of human disease. Combining microarrays with tissue banks allows for the display of virtually all mRNAs expressed at a given time point and provides a comprehensive, unbiased starting point for a systematic analysis of disease processes, resulting in mRNA fingerprints associated with defined clinical outcomes.

Ultimately, after more analysis these biomarkers may be applied towards early diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to therapy. Functional genomics seeks to decode gene interactions and cellular pathways involved in disease biology that might be a suitable target of newer molecular therapeutics. Clear limitations concerning molecular target definition from transcriptomic datasets are the multiple layers of regulation interposed between mRNA level alterations and downstream changes in protein function.

Nephroseq supports this research by combining a compendium of publicly available human renal gene expression profiles, a sophisticated analysis engine, and a web application designed for the visualization of gene expression data.