High-throughput profiling of chemical-induced gene expression across 93,644 perturbations

Nat Methods. 2025 Sep;22(9):1954-1963. doi: 10.1038/s41592-025-02781-5. Epub 2025 Aug 18.

Abstract

In this Resource, we present an extensive dataset of chemical-induced gene signatures (CIGS), encompassing expression patterns of 3,407 genes regulating key biological processes in 2 human cell lines exposed to 13,221 compounds across 93,664 perturbations. This dataset encompasses 319,045,108 gene expression events, generated through 2 high-throughput technologies: the previously documented high-throughput sequencing-based high-throughput screening (HTS2) and the newly developed highly multiplexed and parallel sequencing (HiMAP-seq). Our results show that HiMAP-seq is comparable to RNA sequencing, but can profile the expression of thousands of genes across thousands of samples in one single test by utilizing a pooled-sample strategy. We further illustrate CIGS's utility in elucidating the mechanism of action of unannotated small molecules, like ligustroflavone and 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde, and to identify perturbation-induced cell states, such as those resistant to ferroptosis. The full dataset is publicly accessible at https://cigs.iomicscloud.com/ .

MeSH terms

  • Cell Line
  • Gene Expression Profiling* / methods
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing* / methods
  • High-Throughput Screening Assays* / methods
  • Humans
  • Small Molecule Libraries / pharmacology
  • Transcriptome* / drug effects

Substances

  • Small Molecule Libraries