Characterization of the molecular function of the human genome and its variation across individuals is essential for identifying the cellular mechanisms that underlie human genetic traits and diseases. The GTEx project, supported by the US National Institutes of Health, has recently published data describing genetic effects on gene expression levels across individuals and diverse tissues of the human body including 44 types of tissue from 449 human donors, from blood vessels to 10 different brain regions.
In the methods it is described, how they proceed: each sampled tissue was preserved in PAXgene Tissue Containers, one of each paired sample was embedded in paraffin (PAXgene Tissue fixed, paraffin-embedded = PFPE) for histopathological review and the second was shipped for processing and molecular analysis using PAXgene Tissue RNA and DNA isolation kits.
