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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 25, 2025

Simple and Rapid Method to Obtain High-quality Tumor DNA from Clinical-pathological Specimens Using Touch Imprint Cytology

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Histologic and Quality Assessment of Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Research Samples: A Large Postmortem Tissue

Leslie Sobin¹, Mary Barcus¹, Philip A Branton²

¹From Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc, Rockville, Maryland (Sobin, Barcus, Tabor, Roche, Luke).

Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

|May 26, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The National Institutes of Health Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project ensures high-quality biospecimens for genetic variation studies. Most tissues met standards for RNA sequencing, providing a valuable resource for research.

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Optimization for Sequencing and Analysis of Degraded FFPE-RNA Samples

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Published on: June 8, 2020

Area of Science:

Genomics
Molecular Biology
Bioinformatics

Background:

The National Institutes of Health Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project aims to understand how genetic variations impact gene expression across diverse human tissues.
Quality assessment of biospecimens is crucial for reliable downstream analyses, including evaluation of preanalytic factors and underlying disease conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

To assess the quality of biospecimens collected for the GTEx project.
To identify tissue-specific challenges in procurement and preservation.
To evaluate the suitability of tissues for RNA sequencing and other molecular analyses.

Main Methods:

Pathological evaluation of electronic images of nearly 30,000 tissue specimens from approximately 1000 postmortem donors.
Assessment of autolysis, tissue purity, and extraneous tissue by board-certified pathologists.
Evaluation of tissue-specific differences in autolysis, RNA integrity, postmortem interval, and rapidity of death.

Main Results:

Ninety-five percent of collected tissues were of sufficient quality for RNA sequencing.
Observed significant tissue-specific differences in autolysis and RNA integrity.
Identified tissue-specific susceptibilities related to postmortem interval and rapidity of death.

Conclusions:

The GTEx project successfully generated a high-quality, comprehensive resource of biospecimens and associated data.
The GTEx data, including genomic and clinical information, supports a wide range of scientific investigations.
GTEx biospecimens and data are publicly available, facilitating extensive research use and contributing to numerous publications.