Fig. 5
Conserved lncRNAs are more broadly expression in more tissues types. a Tissue specificity of 318 conserved (left panel) and 2831 non-conserved (right panel) lncRNAs across 22 examined human tissues. b Boxplots comparing the counts of tissues in which non-conserved lncRNAs, conserved lncRNAs, and mRNAs can be detected (FPKM > 0.1). Tissue counts refer to the number of tissues (out of 22) that show expression level FPKM > 0.1 for each category of transcripts. Non-conserved lncRNAs have the lowest tissue counts, followed by conserved lncRNAs and mRNAs. Non-conserved lncRNAs vs. conserved lncRNAs: p-value = 0.0001587; non-conserved lncRNAs vs. mRNAs: p-value < 2.2e-16; conserved lncRNAs vs. mRNAs: p-value < 2.2e-16. Mann–Whitney U-test. c Boxplots comparing maximal tissue specificity scores among non-conserved lncRNAs, conserved lncRNAs, and mRNAs. Maximal tissue specificity score is defined by the maximal fractional expression of the examined lncRNAs among all 22 tissues. Non-conserved lncRNAs show the highest tissue specificity, followed by conserved lncRNAs and mRNAs. Non-conserved vs. conserved, p-value = 0.003371; non-conserved vs. mRNA, p-value < 2.2e-16; conserved vs. mRNA, p-value < 2.2e-16. Mann–Whitney U-test. d Violin plots representing the distribution of all possible pairwise correlations among 22 tissues, using either conserved or non-conserved lncRNAs. Correlations between tissues generated using conserved lncRNAs are significantly higher than using non-conserved lncRNAs. Mann–Whitney U-test, p-value = 3.362e-11. * denotes significant p-value < 0.05
