Fig. 2

MRN normalisation reveals weak and inconsistent correlations between mtOXPHOS and nuOXPHOS within tissues. A Heatmap showing median Spearman’s ρ for mtOXPHOS and nuOXPHOS gene expression using MRN normalisation in 48 GTEx tissues combined (100 samples from each tissue, sampled 100 times). B Boxplot showing median Spearman’s ρ for 100 iterations of mtOXPHOS genes with random nuclear genes or mtOXPHOS with nuOXPHOS genes for 48 GTEx tissues combined. C Scatterplot showing mean MRN-normalized pseudocounts for mtOXPHOS and nuOXPHOS genes in 48 GTEx tissues. The 13 brain tissues display a high mtOXPHOS count and are shown in red. D Observed median Spearman’s ρ between mtOXPHOS and nuOXPHOS genes for 48 GTEx tissues. Error bars show 95% bootstrap confidence interval. Blue bars indicate observed correlation significantly lower than 0 (bootstrap empirical p value, FDR-adjusted < 0.05), red bars indicate observed correlation significantly higher than 0 and grey bars indicate FDR > 0.05. Z statistics and p values for observed value relative to mtOXPHOS with random nuclear genes are shown in Additional File 1:Table S1. E Heatmap showing Spearman’s ρ for mtOXPHOS and nuOXPHOS genes for 8 GTEx tissues showing clear positive or negative correlations