# Age effect explorer: a Shiny application to browse and visualize tissue-specific age-related gene expression changes

## TL;DR

Age Effect Explorer is a web tool that lets users explore how gene expression changes with age in different human tissues, without needing programming skills.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is an accessible, interactive tool for exploring age-related gene expression changes across 54 tissues using GTEx data.

## Key findings

- Age Effect Explorer validated known aging markers like EDA2R.
- The tool enables rapid, code-free exploration of age- and sex-related gene expression patterns.
- It uses pre-calculated results from 981 individuals and GTEx v10 data.

## Abstract

Understanding age-related transcriptional changes in human tissues is crucial for elucidating molecular mechanisms of aging and disease. Current genomic analysis tools often require programming expertise, limiting accessibility for comprehensive aging studies. Here, we present Age Effect Explorer, an interactive R Shiny application for systematically analyzing age- and sex-related gene expression pattern changes across 54 human tissues using Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) v10 data.

We obtained gene-level expression profiles from 981 individuals, and fitted ordinary least squares linear models including age, sex, and technical covariates with FDR correction. Pre-calculated results are stored in a cloud database enabling rapid, code-free exploration through an intuitive web interface. Age Effect Explorer validated known aging markers including age-correlated EDA2R. This resource democratizes access to aging transcriptomics, facilitating the discovery of tissue-specific aging mechanisms.

The Age Effect Explorer can be accessed using a web browser at https://menghui.shinyapps.io/ageeffectexplorer/. The code used to create the Shiny application, along with a tutorial, can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/ML198/GTEx-Explorer.