Welcome to HGEx-ERdb

The uterus of viviparous species is endowed with an extraordinary ability to accommodate and nurture a semi-allogenic embryo. This function is primarily executed by the inner lining of the uterus (i.e. endometrium). However endometrium allows the embryo to adhere to itself only during a specific phase in the menstrual cycle, termed as the receptive phase or the window of implantation. This period of 5 days spans day 19 to day 23 of the menstrual cycle in humans. Receptive phase is marked by several molecular events which prepare the endometrium to host the embryo. Endometrial transformation at structural and functional levels is brought out by alterations in the expression of specific genes. Interest in identity and functions of these genes has prompted several investigations in the recent years.
HGEx-ERdb is a database of observations assimilated from the studies conducted with an aim to define the molecular phenotype of the receptive phase endometrium. The data have been manually curated from Gene Expression Omnibus and peer reviewed journals. For creating HGEx-ERdb database, which stores information about 19,285 genes, 312 datasets were retrieved from 51 publications of human studies.
The database can be queried for the expression status of a gene (transcribed or dormant) in a menstrual cycle phase, specified by the user. It also provides information on the relative expression level of any gene of interest, when compared between different physiological conditions. The output displays a 'reliability-score' for each gene which indicates the extent of agreement or contradiction on the expression status across multiple gene-lists (Acharya et al. BMC Genomics. 2010 Aug 11; 11:467).
It is anticipated that availability of HGEx-ERdb will be a great resource for those engaged in implantation research and will pave the way for more focussed (pathway based) studies on endometrial biology.