Exon-level expression profiling of ocular tissues

•We performed exon-level expression profiling in ten normal human ocular tissues.•Expression was measured with Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST arrays.•We show correlation of expression results using other expression platforms.•Expression values are available at: https://genome.uiowa.edu/otdb/.

The normal gene expression profiles of the tissues in the eye are a valuable resource for considering genes likely to be involved with disease processes. We profiled gene expression in ten ocular tissues from human donor eyes using Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST arrays. Ten different tissues were obtained from six different individuals and RNA was pooled. The tissues included: retina, optic nerve head (ONH), optic nerve (ON), ciliary body (CB), trabecular meshwork (TM), sclera, lens, cornea, choroid/retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and iris. Expression values were compared with publically available Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) and RNA-sequencing resources. Known tissue-specific genes were examined and they demonstrated correspondence of expression with the representative ocular tissues. The estimated gene and exon level abundances are available online at the Ocular Tissue Database.