Genome-wide midrange transcription profiles reveal expression level relationships in human tissue specification

Epigenetic and genetic variations at the TNNT1 gene locus are associated with HDL-C levels and coronary artery disease

AIM

To assess whether epigenetic and genetic variations at the TNNT1 gene locus are associated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and coronary artery disease (CAD). Patients, materials & methods: TNNT1 DNA methylation and c.-20G>A polymorphism were genotyped in subjects with and without familial hypercholesterolemia (FH).

RESULTS

Lower TNNT1 DNA methylation levels were independently associated with lower HDL-C levels and with the TNNT1 c.-20G>A polymorphism. In FH men, carriers of the TNNT1 c.-20G>A polymorphism had lower HDL-C levels and an increased risk of CAD compared with noncarriers. In non-FH men, a higher TNNT1 DNA methylation level was associated with CAD.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that TNNT1 genetic and epigenetic variations are associated with HDL-C levels and CAD.

The Adaptive Significance of Natural Genetic Variation in the DNA Damage Response of Drosophila melanogaster

Despite decades of work, our understanding of the distribution of fitness effects of segregating genetic variants in natural populations remains largely incomplete. One form of selection that can maintain genetic variation is spatially varying selection, such as that leading to latitudinal clines. While the introduction of population genomic approaches to understanding spatially varying selection has generated much excitement, little successful effort has been devoted to moving beyond genome scans for selection to experimental analysis of the relevant biology and the development of experimentally motivated hypotheses regarding the agents of selection; it remains an interesting question as to whether the vast majority of population genomic work will lead to satisfying biological insights. Here, motivated by population genomic results, we investigate how spatially varying selection in the genetic model system, Drosophila melanogaster, has led to genetic differences between populations in several components of the DNA damage response. UVB incidence, which is negatively correlated with latitude, is an important agent of DNA damage. We show that sensitivity of early embryos to UVB exposure is strongly correlated with latitude such that low latitude populations show much lower sensitivity to UVB. We then show that lines with lower embryo UVB sensitivity also exhibit increased capacity for repair of damaged sperm DNA by the oocyte. A comparison of the early embryo transcriptome in high and low latitude embryos provides evidence that one mechanism of adaptive DNA repair differences between populations is the greater abundance of DNA repair transcripts in the eggs of low latitude females. Finally, we use population genomic comparisons of high and low latitude samples to reveal evidence that multiple components of the DNA damage response and both coding and non-coding variation likely contribute to adaptive differences in DNA repair between populations.

Distribution of miRNA expression across human tissues

We present a human miRNA tissue atlas by determining the abundance of 1997 miRNAs in 61 tissue biopsies of different organs from two individuals collected post-mortem. One thousand three hundred sixty-four miRNAs were discovered in at least one tissue, 143 were present in each tissue. To define the distribution of miRNAs, we utilized a tissue specificity index (TSI). The majority of miRNAs (82.9%) fell in a middle TSI range i.e. were neither specific for single tissues (TSI > 0.85) nor housekeeping miRNAs (TSI < 0.5). Nonetheless, we observed many different miRNAs and miRNA families that were predominantly expressed in certain tissues. Clustering of miRNA abundances revealed that tissues like several areas of the brain clustered together. Considering -3p and -5p mature forms we observed miR-150 with different tissue specificity. Analysis of additional lung and prostate biopsies indicated that inter-organism variability was significantly lower than inter-organ variability. Tissue-specific differences between the miRNA patterns appeared not to be significantly altered by storage as shown for heart and lung tissue. MiRNAs TSI values of human tissues were significantly (P = 10⁻⁸) correlated with those of rats; miRNAs that were highly abundant in certain human tissues were likewise abundant in according rat tissues. We implemented a web-based repository enabling scientists to access and browse the data (https://ccb-web.cs.uni-saarland.de/tissueatlas).

Genome-wide identification and characterization of long intergenic noncoding RNAs and their potential association with larval development in the Pacific oyster

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) may play diverse roles in many cellular processes. However, little is known about lincRNAs in marine invertebrates. Here, we presented the first identification and characterization of lincRNAs in the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas). We developed a pipeline and identified 11,668 lincRNAs in C. gigas based on RNA-Seq resources available. These lincRNAs exhibited many common characteristics with vertebrate lincRNAs: relatively short length, low exon numbers, low expression, and low sequence conservation. 1,175 lincRNAs were expressed in a tissue-specific manner, with 35.2% preferentially expressed in male gonad. 776 lincRNAs were specifically expressed in juvenile during different developmental stages. In addition, 47 lincRNAs were found to be potentially related to oyster settlement and metamorphosis. Such diverse temporal and spatial patterns of expression suggest that these lincRNAs might function in cell differentiation during early development, as well as sex differentiation and reproduction. Based on a co-expression network analysis, five lincRNAs were detected that have an expression correlation with key hub genes in four modules significantly correlated with larval development. Our study provides the first large-scale identification of lincRNAs in molluscs and offers new insights into potential functions of lincRNAs in marine invertebrates.

Genes with monoallelic expression contribute disproportionately to genetic diversity in humans

An unexpectedly large number of human autosomal genes are subject to monoallelic expression (MAE). Our analysis of 4,227 such genes uncovers surprisingly high genetic variation across human populations. This increased diversity is unlikely to reflect relaxed purifying selection. Remarkably, MAE genes exhibit an elevated recombination rate and an increased density of hypermutable sequence contexts. However, these factors do not fully account for the increased diversity. We find that the elevated nucleotide diversity of MAE genes is also associated with greater allelic age: variants in these genes tend to be older and are enriched in polymorphisms shared by Neanderthals and chimpanzees. Both synonymous and nonsynonymous alleles of MAE genes have elevated average population frequencies. We also observed strong enrichment of the MAE signature among genes reported to evolve under balancing selection. We propose that an important biological function of widespread MAE might be the generation of cell-to-cell heterogeneity; the increased genetic variation contributes to this heterogeneity.

Genome-wide detection of DNase I hypersensitive sites in single cells and FFPE tissue samples

DNase I hypersensitive sites (DHSs) provide important information on the presence of transcriptional regulatory elements and the state of chromatin in mammalian cells. Conventional DNase sequencing (DNase-seq) for genome-wide DHSs profiling is limited by the requirement of millions of cells. Here we report an ultrasensitive strategy, called single-cell DNase sequencing (scDNase-seq) for detection of genome-wide DHSs in single cells. We show that DHS patterns at the single-cell level are highly reproducible among individual cells. Among different single cells, highly expressed gene promoters and enhancers associated with multiple active histone modifications display constitutive DHS whereas chromatin regions with fewer histone modifications exhibit high variation of DHS. Furthermore, the single-cell DHSs predict enhancers that regulate cell-specific gene expression programs and the cell-to-cell variations of DHS are predictive of gene expression. Finally, we apply scDNase-seq to pools of tumour cells and pools of normal cells, dissected from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue slides from patients with thyroid cancer, and detect thousands of tumour-specific DHSs. Many of these DHSs are associated with promoters and enhancers critically involved in cancer development. Analysis of the DHS sequences uncovers one mutation (chr18: 52417839G>C) in the tumour cells of a patient with follicular thyroid carcinoma, which affects the binding of the tumour suppressor protein p53 and correlates with decreased expression of its target gene TXNL1. In conclusion, scDNase-seq can reliably detect DHSs in single cells, greatly extending the range of applications of DHS analysis both for basic and for translational research, and may provide critical information for personalized medicine.

Multi-scale modeling of Arabidopsis thaliana response to different CO2 conditions: From gene expression to metabolic flux

Multi-scale investigation from gene transcript level to metabolic activity is important to uncover plant response to environment perturbation. Here we integrated a genome-scale constraint-based metabolic model with transcriptome data to explore Arabidopsis thaliana response to both elevated and low CO2 conditions. The four condition-specific models from low to high CO2 concentrations show differences in active reaction sets, enriched pathways for increased/decreased fluxes, and putative post-transcriptional regulation, which indicates that condition-specific models are necessary to reflect physiological metabolic states. The simulated CO2 fixation flux at different CO2 concentrations is consistent with the measured Assimilation-CO2intercellular curve. Interestingly, we found that reactions in primary metabolism are affected most significantly by CO2 perturbation, whereas secondary metabolic reactions are not influenced a lot. The changes predicted in key pathways are consistent with existing knowledge. Another interesting point is that Arabidopsis is required to make stronger adjustment on metabolism to adapt to the more severe low CO2 stress than elevated CO2 . The challenges of identifying post-transcriptional regulation could also be addressed by the integrative model. In conclusion, this innovative application of multi-scale modeling in plants demonstrates potential to uncover the mechanisms of metabolic response to different conditions.

Origins of De Novo Genes in Human and Chimpanzee

The birth of new genes is an important motor of evolutionary innovation. Whereas many new genes arise by gene duplication, others originate at genomic regions that did not contain any genes or gene copies. Some of these newly expressed genes may acquire coding or non-coding functions and be preserved by natural selection. However, it is yet unclear which is the prevalence and underlying mechanisms of de novo gene emergence. In order to obtain a comprehensive view of this process, we have performed in-depth sequencing of the transcriptomes of four mammalian species--human, chimpanzee, macaque, and mouse--and subsequently compared the assembled transcripts and the corresponding syntenic genomic regions. This has resulted in the identification of over five thousand new multiexonic transcriptional events in human and/or chimpanzee that are not observed in the rest of species. Using comparative genomics, we show that the expression of these transcripts is associated with the gain of regulatory motifs upstream of the transcription start site (TSS) and of U1 snRNP sites downstream of the TSS. In general, these transcripts show little evidence of purifying selection, suggesting that many of them are not functional. However, we find signatures of selection in a subset of de novo genes which have evidence of protein translation. Taken together, the data support a model in which frequently-occurring new transcriptional events in the genome provide the raw material for the evolution of new proteins.

Global expression differences and tissue specific expression differences in rice evolution result in two contrasting types of differentially expressed genes

BACKGROUND

Since the development of transcriptome analysis systems, many expression evolution studies characterized evolutionary forces acting on gene expression, without explicit discrimination between global expression differences and tissue specific expression differences. However, different types of gene expression alteration should have different effects on an organism, the evolutionary forces that act on them might be different, and different types of genes might show different types of differential expression between species. To confirm this, we studied differentially expressed (DE) genes among closely related groups that have extensive gene expression atlases, and clarified characteristics of different types of DE genes including the identification of regulating loci for differential expression using expression quantitative loci (eQTL) analysis data.

RESULTS

We detected differentially expressed (DE) genes between rice subspecies in five homologous tissues that were verified using japonica and indica transcriptome atlases in public databases. Using the transcriptome atlases, we classified DE genes into two types, global DE genes and changed-tissues DE genes. Global type DE genes were not expressed in any tissues in the atlas of one subspecies, however changed-tissues type DE genes were expressed in both subspecies with different tissue specificity. For the five tissues in the two japonica-indica combinations, 4.6 ± 0.8 and 5.9 ± 1.5 % of highly expressed genes were global and changed-tissues DE genes, respectively. Changed-tissues DE genes varied in number between tissues, increasing linearly with the abundance of tissue specifically expressed genes in the tissue. Molecular evolution of global DE genes was rapid, unlike that of changed-tissues DE genes. Based on gene ontology, global and changed-tissues DE genes were different, having no common GO terms. Expression differences of most global DE genes were regulated by cis-eQTLs. Expression evolution of changed-tissues DE genes was rapid in tissue specifically expressed genes and those rapidly evolved changed-tissues DE genes were regulated not by cis-eQTLs, but by complicated trans-eQTLs.

CONCLUSIONS

Global DE genes and changed-tissues DE genes had contrasting characteristics. The two contrasting types of DE genes provide possible explanations for the previous controversial conclusions about the relationships between molecular evolution and expression evolution of genes in different species, and the relationship between expression breadth and expression conservation in evolution.

NFI-C2 temporal-spatial expression and cellular localization pattern during tooth formation

Currently, little is known regarding critical signaling pathways during later stages of tooth development, especially those associated with root formation. Nfi-c null mice, lacking molar roots, have implicated the transcription factor NFI-C as having an essential role in root development. Previously, we identified three NFI-C isoforms expressed in dental tissues with NFI-C2 being the major transcript. However, the expression pattern of the NFI-C2 protein is not characterized. In this study we performed in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry using isoform specific probes. We show the production of a NFI-C2 peptide antibody, its characterization, the temporal-spatial expression pattern of the NFI-C2 protein during odontogenesis and sub-cellular localization in dental cells. Moderate NFI-C2 staining, as early as bud stage, was detected mostly in the condensing dental ectomesenchyme. This staining intensified within the dental pulp at later stages culminating in high expression in the dentin producing odontoblasts. The dental epithelium showed slight staining until cytodifferentiation of enamel organ into ameloblasts and stratum intermedium. During root formation NFI-C2 expression was high in the Hertwig's epithelial root sheath and later was found in the fully developed root and its supporting tissues. NFI-C2 cellular staining was cytosolic, associated with the Golgi, and nuclear. These data suggest a broader role for NFI-C during tooth formation than limited to root and periodontal ligament development.

Comprehensive Identification of Long Non-coding RNAs in Purified Cell Types from the Brain Reveals Functional LncRNA in OPC Fate Determination

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) (> 200 bp) play crucial roles in transcriptional regulation during numerous biological processes. However, it is challenging to comprehensively identify lncRNAs, because they are often expressed at low levels and with more cell-type specificity than are protein-coding genes. In the present study, we performed ab initio transcriptome reconstruction using eight purified cell populations from mouse cortex and detected more than 5000 lncRNAs. Predicting the functions of lncRNAs using cell-type specific data revealed their potential functional roles in Central Nervous System (CNS) development. We performed motif searches in ENCODE DNase I digital footprint data and Mouse ENCODE promoters to infer transcription factor (TF) occupancy. By integrating TF binding and cell-type specific transcriptomic data, we constructed a novel framework that is useful for systematically identifying lncRNAs that are potentially essential for brain cell fate determination. Based on this integrative analysis, we identified lncRNAs that are regulated during Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cell (OPC) differentiation from Neural Stem Cells (NSCs) and that are likely to be involved in oligodendrogenesis. The top candidate, lnc-OPC, shows highly specific expression in OPCs and remarkable sequence conservation among placental mammals. Interestingly, lnc-OPC is significantly up-regulated in glial progenitors from experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) mouse models compared to wild-type mice. OLIG2-binding sites in the upstream regulatory region of lnc-OPC were identified by ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation)-Sequencing and validated by luciferase assays. Loss-of-function experiments confirmed that lnc-OPC plays a functional role in OPC genesis. Overall, our results substantiated the role of lncRNA in OPC fate determination and provided an unprecedented data source for future functional investigations in CNS cell types. We present our datasets and analysis results via the interactive genome browser at our laboratory website that is freely accessible to the research community. This is the first lncRNA expression database of collective populations of glia, vascular cells, and neurons. We anticipate that these studies will advance the knowledge of this major class of non-coding genes and their potential roles in neurological development and diseases.

Between 70 and 90% of the mammalian genome is transcribed at some point during development; however, only < 2% of the genome is associated with protein-coding genes. Emerging evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs; > 200 bp) play important roles in cell fate determination. In the present study, we broadened the lncRNA catalog by ab initio reconstruction of the transcriptomes of purified mouse cortex cell populations. More than 5000 lncRNAs were detected in the brain cell types studied. Predicting lncRNA functions using a ‘guilt-by-association’ approach revealed potential functions of lncRNAs in Central Nervous System development. Additionally, we analyzed transcription factor occupancy in the upstream regulatory regions of the lncRNAs. By integrating differential gene expression and transcription factor occupancy information, lncRNAs that are likely involved in oligodendrocyte precursor cell formation were identified. Loss-of-function experiments confirmed that the top candidate, lnc-OPC (long non-coding RNA in OPC), significantly reduces OPC differentiation from NSCs. Interestingly, lnc-OPC is up-regulated in glial progenitors of mouse models for multiple sclerosis. Our results demonstrated the role of lncRNA in the context of oligodendrocyte cell fate determination, and provided an extensive resource and a powerful analysis framework for future functional investigations of lncRNAs in CNS cell types.

A CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system targeting female reproduction in the malaria mosquito vector Anopheles gambiae

Gene drive systems that enable super-Mendelian inheritance of a transgene have the potential to modify insect populations over a timeframe of a few years. We describe CRISPR-Cas9 endonuclease constructs that function as gene drive systems in Anopheles gambiae, the main vector for malaria. We identified three genes (AGAP005958, AGAP011377 and AGAP007280) that confer a recessive female-sterility phenotype upon disruption, and inserted into each locus CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive constructs designed to target and edit each gene. For each targeted locus we observed a strong gene drive at the molecular level, with transmission rates to progeny of 91.4 to 99.6%. Population modeling and cage experiments indicate that a CRISPR-Cas9 construct targeting one of these loci, AGAP007280, meets the minimum requirement for a gene drive targeting female reproduction in an insect population. These findings could expedite the development of gene drives to suppress mosquito populations to levels that do not support malaria transmission.

SINCERA: A Pipeline for Single-Cell RNA-Seq Profiling Analysis

A major challenge in developmental biology is to understand the genetic and cellular processes/programs driving organ formation and differentiation of the diverse cell types that comprise the embryo. While recent studies using single cell transcriptome analysis illustrate the power to measure and understand cellular heterogeneity in complex biological systems, processing large amounts of RNA-seq data from heterogeneous cell populations creates the need for readily accessible tools for the analysis of single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) profiles. The present study presents a generally applicable analytic pipeline (SINCERA: a computational pipeline for SINgle CEll RNA-seq profiling Analysis) for processing scRNA-seq data from a whole organ or sorted cells. The pipeline supports the analysis for: 1) the distinction and identification of major cell types; 2) the identification of cell type specific gene signatures; and 3) the determination of driving forces of given cell types. We applied this pipeline to the RNA-seq analysis of single cells isolated from embryonic mouse lung at E16.5. Through the pipeline analysis, we distinguished major cell types of fetal mouse lung, including epithelial, endothelial, smooth muscle, pericyte, and fibroblast-like cell types, and identified cell type specific gene signatures, bioprocesses, and key regulators. SINCERA is implemented in R, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3, and freely available from CCHMC PBGE website, https://research.cchmc.org/pbge/sincera.html.

Evolutionary Rate Heterogeneity of Primary and Secondary Metabolic Pathway Genes in Arabidopsis thaliana

Primary metabolism is essential to plants for growth and development, and secondary metabolism helps plants to interact with the environment. Many plant metabolites are industrially important. These metabolites are produced by plants through complex metabolic pathways. Lack of knowledge about these pathways is hindering the successful breeding practices for these metabolites. For a better knowledge of the metabolism in plants as a whole, evolutionary rate variation of primary and secondary metabolic pathway genes is a prerequisite. In this study, evolutionary rate variation of primary and secondary metabolic pathway genes has been analyzed in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Primary metabolic pathway genes were found to be more conserved than secondary metabolic pathway genes. Several factors such as gene structure, expression level, tissue specificity, multifunctionality, and domain number are the key factors behind this evolutionary rate variation. This study will help to better understand the evolutionary dynamics of plant metabolism.

Effect of summer daylight exposure and genetic background on growth in growth hormone-deficient children

The response to growth hormone in humans is dependent on phenotypic, genetic and environmental factors. The present study in children with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) collected worldwide characterised gene–environment interactions on growth response to recombinant human growth hormone (r-hGH). Growth responses in children are linked to latitude, and we found that a correlate of latitude, summer daylight exposure (SDE), was a key environmental factor related to growth response to r-hGH. In turn growth response was determined by an interaction between both SDE and genes known to affect growth response to r-hGH. In addition, analysis of associated networks of gene expression implicated a role for circadian clock pathways and specifically the developmental transcription factor NANOG. This work provides the first observation of gene–environment interactions in children treated with r-hGH.

Strong Constraint on Human Genes Escaping X-Inactivation Is Modulated by their Expression Level and Breadth in Both Sexes

In eutherian mammals, X-linked gene expression is normalized between XX females and XY males through the process of X chromosome inactivation (XCI). XCI results in silencing of transcription from one ChrX homolog per female cell. However, approximately 25% of human ChrX genes escape XCI to some extent and exhibit biallelic expression in females. The evolutionary basis of this phenomenon is not entirely clear, but high sequence conservation of XCI escapers suggests that purifying selection may directly or indirectly drive XCI escape at these loci. One hypothesis is that this signal results from contributions to developmental and physiological sex differences, but presently there is limited evidence supporting this model in humans. Another potential driver of this signal is selection for high and/or broad gene expression in both sexes, which are strong predictors of reduced nucleotide substitution rates in mammalian genes. Here, we compared purifying selection and gene expression patterns of human XCI escapers with those of X-inactivated genes in both sexes. When we accounted for the functional status of each ChrX gene’s Y-linked homolog (or “gametolog”), we observed that XCI escapers exhibit greater degrees of purifying selection in the human lineage than X-inactivated genes, as well as higher and broader gene expression than X-inactivated genes across tissues in both sexes. These results highlight a significant role for gene expression in both sexes in driving purifying selection on XCI escapers, and emphasize these genes’ potential importance in human disease.

A Genome-Wide Landscape of Retrocopies in Primate Genomes

Gene duplication is a key factor contributing to phenotype diversity across and within species. Although the availability of complete genomes has led to the extensive study of genomic duplications, the dynamics and variability of gene duplications mediated by retrotransposition are not well understood. Here, we predict mRNA retrotransposition and use comparative genomics to investigate their origin and variability across primates. Analyzing seven anthropoid primate genomes, we found a similar number of mRNA retrotranspositions (∼7,500 retrocopies) in Catarrhini (Old Word Monkeys, including humans), but a surprising large number of retrocopies (∼10,000) in Platyrrhini (New World Monkeys), which may be a by-product of higher long interspersed nuclear element 1 activity in these genomes. By inferring retrocopy orthology, we dated most of the primate retrocopy origins, and estimated a decrease in the fixation rate in recent primate history, implying a smaller number of species-specific retrocopies. Moreover, using RNA-Seq data, we identified approximately 3,600 expressed retrocopies. As expected, most of these retrocopies are located near or within known genes, present tissue-specific and even species-specific expression patterns, and no expression correlation to their parental genes. Taken together, our results provide further evidence that mRNA retrotransposition is an active mechanism in primate evolution and suggest that retrocopies may not only introduce great genetic variability between lineages but also create a large reservoir of potentially functional new genomic loci in primate genomes.

Chromatin states modify network motifs contributing to cell-specific functions

Epigenetic modification can affect many important biological processes, such as cell proliferation and apoptosis. It can alter chromatin conformation and contribute to gene regulation. To investigate how chromatin states associated with network motifs, we assembled chromatin state-modified regulatory networks by combining 269 ChIP-seq data and chromatin states in four cell types. We found that many chromatin states were significantly associated with network motifs, especially for feedforward loops (FFLs). These distinct chromatin state compositions contribute to different expression levels and translational control of targets in FFLs. Strikingly, the chromatin state-modified FFLs were highly cell-specific and, to a large extent, determined cell-selective functions, such as the embryonic stem cell-specific bivalent modification-related FFL with an important role in poising developmentally important genes for expression. Besides, comparisons of chromatin state-modified FFLs between cancerous/stem and primary cell lines revealed specific type of chromatin state alterations that may act together with motif structural changes cooperatively contribute to cell-to-cell functional differences. Combination of these alterations could be helpful in prioritizing candidate genes. Together, this work highlights that a dynamic epigenetic dimension can help network motifs to control cell-specific functions.

Tissue-Specific Evolution of Protein Coding Genes in Human and Mouse

Protein-coding genes evolve at different rates, and the influence of different parameters, from gene size to expression level, has been extensively studied. While in yeast gene expression level is the major causal factor of gene evolutionary rate, the situation is more complex in animals. Here we investigate these relations further, especially taking in account gene expression in different organs as well as indirect correlations between parameters. We used RNA-seq data from two large datasets, covering 22 mouse tissues and 27 human tissues. Over all tissues, evolutionary rate only correlates weakly with levels and breadth of expression. The strongest explanatory factors of purifying selection are GC content, expression in many developmental stages, and expression in brain tissues. While the main component of evolutionary rate is purifying selection, we also find tissue-specific patterns for sites under neutral evolution and for positive selection. We observe fast evolution of genes expressed in testis, but also in other tissues, notably liver, which are explained by weak purifying selection rather than by positive selection.

Variation in the X:Autosome Distribution of Male-Biased Genes among Drosophila melanogaster Tissues and Its Relationship with Dosage Compensation

Genes that are expressed differently between males and females (sex-biased genes) often show a nonrandom distribution in their genomic location, particularly with respect to the autosomes and the X chromosome. Previous studies of Drosophila melanogaster found a general paucity of male-biased genes on the X chromosome, although this is mainly limited to comparisons of whole flies or body segments containing the reproductive organs. To better understand the chromosomal distribution of sex-biased genes in various tissues, we used a common analysis framework to analyze microarray and RNA sequence data comparing male and female gene expression in individual tissues (brain, Malpighian tubule, and gonads), composite structures (head and gonadectomized carcass), and whole flies. Although there are relatively few sex-biased genes in the brain, there is a strong and highly significant enrichment of male-biased genes on the X chromosome. A weaker enrichment of X-linked male-biased genes is seen in the head, suggesting that most of this signal comes from the brain. In all other tissues, there is either no departure from the random expectation or a significant paucity of male-biased genes on the X chromosome. The brain and head also differ from other tissues in that their male-biased genes are significantly closer to binding sites of the dosage compensation complex. We propose that the interplay of dosage compensation and sex-specific regulation can explain the observed differences between tissues and reconcile disparate results reported in previous studies.

Sex-Biased Expression of Young Genes in Silurana (Xenopus) tropicalis

Sex-biased gene expression can evolve from sex-specific selection and is often associated with sex-linked genes. Gene duplication is a particularly effective mechanism for the generation of sex-biased genes, in which a new copy can help resolve intralocus sexual conflicts. This study assesses sex-biased gene expression in an amphibian with homomorphic ZW sex chromosomes, the Western clawed frog Silurana (Xenopus)tropicalis. Previous work has shown that the sex chromosomes in this species are mainly undifferentiated and pseudoautosomal. Consistent with ongoing recombination between the sex chromosomes, this study detected little evidence for the general sexualization of sex-linked regions. A subset of genes closely linked to the sex determining locus displays a tendency for male-biased expression and elevated rates of evolution relative to genes in other genomic locations. This may be a symptom of an early stage of sex chromosome differentiation driven by, for example, chromosomal degeneration or natural selection on genes in this portion of the Z chromosome. Alternatively, it could reflect variation between the sexes in allelic copy number coupled with a lack of dosage compensation. Irrespective of the genomic location, lineage-specific genes and recently duplicated genes had significantly high levels of sex-biased expression, offering insights into the early transcriptional differentiation of young genes.

Lineage-specific sequence evolution and exon edge conservation partially explain the relationship between evolutionary rate and expression level in A. thaliana

Rapidly evolving proteins can aid the identification of genes underlying phenotypic adaptation across taxa, but functional and structural elements of genes can also affect evolutionary rates. In plants, the ‘edges’ of exons, flanking intron junctions, are known to contain splice enhancers and to have a higher degree of conservation compared to the remainder of the coding region. However, the extent to which these regions may be masking indicators of positive selection or account for the relationship between dN/dS and other genomic parameters is unclear. We investigate the effects of exon edge conservation on the relationship of dN/dS to various sequence characteristics and gene expression parameters in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We also obtain lineage-specific dN/dS estimates, making use of the recently sequenced genome of Thellungiella parvula, the second closest sequenced relative after the sister species Arabidopsis lyrata. Overall, we find that the effect of exon edge conservation, as well as the use of lineage-specific substitution estimates, upon dN/dS ratios partly explains the relationship between the rates of protein evolution and expression level. Furthermore, the removal of exon edges shifts dN/dS estimates upwards, increasing the proportion of genes potentially under adaptive selection. We conclude that lineage-specific substitutions and exon edge conservation have an important effect on dN/dS ratios and should be considered when assessing their relationship with other genomic parameters.

Evolutionary analysis of the female-specific avian W chromosome

The typically repetitive nature of the sex-limited chromosome means that it is often excluded from or poorly covered in genome assemblies, hindering studies of evolutionary and population genomic processes in non-recombining chromosomes. Here, we present a draft assembly of the non-recombining region of the collared flycatcher W chromosome, containing 46 genes without evidence of female-specific functional differentiation. Survival of genes during W chromosome degeneration has been highly non-random and expression data suggest that this can be attributed to selection for maintaining gene dose and ancestral expression levels of essential genes. Re-sequencing of large population samples revealed dramatically reduced levels of within-species diversity and elevated rates of between-species differentiation (lineage sorting), consistent with low effective population size. Concordance between W chromosome and mitochondrial DNA phylogenetic trees demonstrates evolutionary stable matrilineal inheritance of this nuclear–cytonuclear pair of chromosomes. Our results show both commonalities and differences between W chromosome and Y chromosome evolution.

The evolution of non-recombining chromosomes is poorly understood. Here, the authors sequence the collared flycatcher female-specific W chromosome and show nonrandom survival of genes during W chromosome degeneration which is due to selection for maintaining gene dose and expression levels of essential genes.

Sexual dimorphism and the evolution of sex-biased gene expression in the brown alga ectocarpus

Males and females often have marked phenotypic differences, and the expression of these dissimilarities invariably involves sex differences in gene expression. Sex-biased gene expression has been well characterized in animal species, where a high proportion of the genome may be differentially regulated in males and females during development. Male-biased genes tend to evolve more rapidly than female-biased genes, implying differences in the strength of the selective forces acting on the two sexes. Analyses of sex-biased gene expression have focused on organisms that exhibit separate sexes during the diploid phase of the life cycle (diploid sexual systems), but the genetic nature of the sexual system is expected to influence the evolutionary trajectories of sex-biased genes. We analyze here the patterns of sex-biased gene expression in Ectocarpus, a brown alga with haploid sex determination (dioicy) and a low level of phenotypic sexual dimorphism. In Ectocarpus, female-biased genes were found to be evolving as rapidly as male-biased genes. Moreover, genes expressed at fertility showed faster rates of evolution than genes expressed in immature gametophytes. Both male- and female-biased genes had a greater proportion of sites experiencing positive selection, suggesting that their accelerated evolution is at least partly driven by adaptive evolution. Gene duplication appears to have played a significant role in the generation of sex-biased genes in Ectocarpus, expanding previous models that propose this mechanism for the resolution of sexual antagonism in diploid systems. The patterns of sex-biased gene expression in Ectocarpus are consistent both with predicted characteristics of UV (haploid) sexual systems and with the distinctive aspects of this organism's reproductive biology.

The human RBPome: from genes and proteins to human disease

RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play a central role in mediating post transcriptional regulation of genes. However less is understood about them and their regulatory mechanisms. In this study, we construct a catalogue of 1344 experimentally confirmed RBPs. The domain architecture of RBPs enabled us to classify them into three groups - Classical (29%), Non-classical (19%) and unclassified (52%). A higher percentage of proteins with unclassified domains reveals the presence of various uncharacterised motifs that can potentially bind RNA. RBPs were found to be highly disordered compared to Non-RBPs (p<2.2e-16, Fisher's exact test), suggestive of a dynamic regulatory role of RBPs in cellular signalling and homeostasis. Evolutionary analysis in 62 different species showed that RBPs are highly conserved compared to Non-RBPs (p<2.2e-16, Wilcox-test), reflecting the conservation of various biological processes like mRNA splicing and ribosome biogenesis. The expression patterns of RBPs from human proteome map revealed that ~40% of them are ubiquitously expressed and ~60% are tissue-specific. RBPs were also seen to be highly associated with several neurological disorders, cancer and inflammatory diseases. Anatomical contexts like B cells, T-cells, foetal liver and foetal brain were found to be strongly enriched for RBPs, implying a prominent role of RBPs in immune responses and different developmental stages. The catalogue and meta-analysis presented here should form a foundation for furthering our understanding of RBPs and the cellular networks they control, in years to come. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Proteomics in India.

Do housekeeping genes exist?

The searching of human housekeeping (HK) genes has been a long quest since the emergence of transcriptomics, and is instrumental for us to understand the structure of genome and the fundamentals of biological processes. The resolved genes are frequently used in evolution studies and as normalization standards in quantitative gene-expression analysis. Within the past 20 years, more than a dozen HK-gene studies have been conducted, yet none of them sampled human tissues completely. We believe an integration of these results will help remove false positive genes owing to the inadequate sampling. Surprisingly, we only find one common gene across 15 examined HK-gene datasets comprising 187 different tissue and cell types. Our subsequent analyses suggest that it might not be appropriate to rigidly define HK genes as expressed in all tissue types that have diverse developmental, physiological, and pathological states. It might be beneficial to use more robustly identified HK functions for filtering criteria, in which the representing genes can be a subset of genome. These genes are not necessarily the same, and perhaps need not to be the same, everywhere in our body.

Parallel Gene Expression Differences between Low and High Latitude Populations of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans

Gene expression variation within species is relatively common, however, the role of natural selection in the maintenance of this variation is poorly understood. Here we investigate low and high latitude populations of Drosophila melanogaster and its sister species, D. simulans, to determine whether the two species show similar patterns of population differentiation, consistent with a role for spatially varying selection in maintaining gene expression variation. We compared at two temperatures the whole male transcriptome of D. melanogaster and D. simulans sampled from Panama City (Panama) and Maine (USA). We observed a significant excess of genes exhibiting differential expression in both species, consistent with parallel adaptation to heterogeneous environments. Moreover, the majority of genes showing parallel expression differentiation showed the same direction of differential expression in the two species and the magnitudes of expression differences between high and low latitude populations were correlated across species, further bolstering the conclusion that parallelism for expression phenotypes results from spatially varying selection. However, the species also exhibited important differences in expression phenotypes. For example, the genomic extent of genotype × environment interaction was much more common in D. melanogaster. Highly differentiated SNPs between low and high latitudes were enriched in the 3’ UTRs and CDS of the geographically differently expressed genes in both species, consistent with an important role for cis-acting variants in driving local adaptation for expression-related phenotypes.

While gene expression variation in natural populations is common, the population genetic processes responsible for the maintenance of this variation remain obscure. Here we study geographic differences in gene expression in recently established low and high latitude populations of two closely related species of Drosophila. We observe substantial parallelism in expression differences and expression plasticity between populations, which supports the idea that spatially varying selection correlated with latitude contributes to the maintenance of gene expression variation in these species. Comparison of inter-population sequence differentiation and expression differentiation suggests that cis-acting variants play a role in geographic expression differentiation.

Highly variable recombinational landscape modulates efficacy of natural selection in birds

Determining the rate of protein evolution and identifying the causes of its variation across the genome are powerful ways to understand forces that are important for genome evolution. By using a multitissue transcriptome data set from great tit (Parus major), we analyzed patterns of molecular evolution between two passerine birds, great tit and zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), using the chicken genome (Gallus gallus) as an outgroup. We investigated whether a special feature of avian genomes, the highly variable recombinational landscape, modulates the efficacy of natural selection through the effects of Hill-Robertson interference, which predicts that selection should be more effective in removing deleterious mutations and incorporating beneficial mutations in high-recombination regions than in low-recombination regions. In agreement with these predictions, genes located in low-recombination regions tend to have a high proportion of neutrally evolving sites and relaxed selective constraint on sites subject to purifying selection, whereas genes that show strong support for past episodes of positive selection appear disproportionally in high-recombination regions. There is also evidence that genes located in high-recombination regions tend to have higher gene expression specificity than those located in low-recombination regions. Furthermore, more compact genes (i.e., those with fewer/shorter introns or shorter proteins) evolve faster than less compact ones. In sum, our results demonstrate that transcriptome sequencing is a powerful method to answer fundamental questions about genome evolution in nonmodel organisms.

Cadherin-related family member 3, a childhood asthma susceptibility gene product, mediates rhinovirus C binding and replication

Members of rhinovirus C (RV-C) species are more likely to cause wheezing illnesses and asthma exacerbations compared with other rhinoviruses. The cellular receptor for these viruses was heretofore unknown. We report here that expression of human cadherin-related family member 3 (CDHR3) enables the cells normally unsusceptible to RV-C infection to support both virus binding and replication. A coding single nucleotide polymorphism (rs6967330, C529Y) was previously linked to greater cell-surface expression of CDHR3 protein, and an increased risk of wheezing illnesses and hospitalizations for childhood asthma. Compared with wild-type CDHR3, cells transfected with the CDHR3-Y529 variant had about 10-fold increases in RV-C binding and progeny yields. We developed a transduced HeLa cell line (HeLa-E8) stably expressing CDHR3-Y529 that supports RV-C propagation in vitro. Modeling of CDHR3 structure identified potential binding sites that could impact the virus surface in regions that are highly conserved among all RV-C types. Our findings identify that the asthma susceptibility gene product CDHR3 mediates RV-C entry into host cells, and suggest that rs6967330 mutation could be a risk factor for RV-C wheezing illnesses.

Genome-wide identification, characterization and evolutionary analysis of long intergenic noncoding RNAs in cucumber

Long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) are intergenic transcripts with a length of at least 200 nt that lack coding potential. Emerging evidence suggests that lincRNAs from animals participate in many fundamental biological processes. However, the systemic identification of lincRNAs has been undertaken in only a few plants. We chose to use cucumber (Cucumis sativus) as a model to analyze lincRNAs due to its importance as a model plant for studying sex differentiation and fruit development and the rich genomic and transcriptome data available. The application of a bioinformatics pipeline to multiple types of gene expression data resulted in the identification and characterization of 3,274 lincRNAs. Next, 10 lincRNAs targeted by 17 miRNAs were also explored. Based on co-expression analysis between lincRNAs and mRNAs, 94 lincRNAs were annotated, which may be involved in response to stimuli, multi-organism processes, reproduction, reproductive processes, and growth. Finally, examination of the evolution of lincRNAs showed that most lincRNAs are under purifying selection, while 16 lincRNAs are under natural selection. Our results provide a rich resource for further validation of cucumber lincRNAs and their function. The identification of lincRNAs targeted by miRNAs offers new clues for investigations into the role of lincRNAs in regulating gene expression. Finally, evaluation of the lincRNAs suggested that some lincRNAs are under positive and balancing selection.

Identification of lncRNA-associated competing triplets reveals global patterns and prognostic markers for cancer

Recent studies have suggested that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can interact with microRNAs (miRNAs) and indirectly regulate miRNA targets though competing interactions. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these interactions are still largely unknown. In this study, these lncRNA–miRNA–gene interactions were defined as lncRNA-associated competing triplets (LncACTs), and an integrated pipeline was developed to identify lncACTs that are active in cancer. Competing lncRNAs had sponge features distinct from non-competing lncRNAs. In the lncACT cross-talk network, disease-associated lncRNAs, miRNAs and coding-genes showed specific topological patterns indicative of their competence and control of communication within the network. The construction of global competing activity profiles revealed that lncACTs had high activity specific to cancers. Analyses of clustered lncACTs revealed that they were enriched in various cancer-related biological processes. Based on the global cross-talk network and cluster analyses, nine cancer-specific sub-networks were constructed. H19- and BRCA1/2-associated lncACTs were able to discriminate between two groups of patients with different clinical outcomes. Disease-associated lncACTs also showed variable competing patterns across normal and cancer patient samples. In summary, this study uncovered and systematically characterized global properties of human lncACTs that may have prognostic value for predicting clinical outcome in cancer patients.

Parallel faster-X evolution of gene expression and protein sequences in Drosophila: beyond differences in expression properties and protein interactions

Population genetics models predict that the X (or Z) chromosome will evolve at faster rates than the autosomes in XY (or ZW) systems. Studies of molecular evolution using large datasets in multiple species have provided evidence supporting this faster-X effect in protein-coding sequences and, more recently, in transcriptomes. However, X-linked and autosomal genes differ significantly in important properties besides hemizygosity in males, including gene expression levels, tissue specificity in gene expression, and the number of interactions in which they are involved (i.e., protein-protein or DNA-protein interactions). Most important, these properties are known to correlate with rates of evolution, which raises the question of whether differences between the X chromosome and autosomes in gene properties, rather than hemizygosity, are sufficient to explain faster-X evolution. Here I investigate this possibility using whole genome sequences and transcriptomes of Drosophila yakuba and D. santomea and show that this is not the case. Additional factors are needed to account for faster-X evolution of both gene expression and protein-coding sequences beyond differences in gene properties, likely a higher incidence of positive selection in combination with the accumulation of weakly deleterious mutations.

Cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element-binding protein transcriptionally regulates CHCHD2 associated with the molecular pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma

The function of the novel cell migration-promoting factor, coiled-coil-helix-coiled-coil-helix domain containing 2 (CHCHD2) in liver cancer remains to be elucidated. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the role of CHCHD2 in liver carcinogenesis. Immunohistochemistry was performed on patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) was used for screening differentially expressed genes in the HepG2 cell cDNA library. Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection frequently leads to liver cancer. The HCV NS2 protein is a hydrophobic transmembrane protein that is associated with certain cellular proteins. Detailed characterization of the nonstructural protein 2 (NS2) of the HCV was performed with respect to its role in transregulatory activity in the HepG2 cell lines. A gel electrophoresis mobility shift assay and a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay were used to confirm the presence of cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element-binding protein (CREB), a transcriptional factor, which specifically interacts with the CHCHD2 promoter. CHCHD2 was highly expressed in the HCC specimens and was consistent with tumor markers of HCC. CHCHD2 was identified by SSH in the HepG2 cells. NS2 upregulated the expression of CHCHD2 by monitoring its promoter activities. The promoter of CHCHD2 contained 350 bp between nucleotides −257 and +93 and was positively regulated by CREB. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicated that CHCHD2 may be a novel biomarker for HCC and that CREB is important in the transcriptional activation of CHCHD2 by HCV NS2.

The Na+/H+ exchanger NHE6 modulates endosomal pH to control processing of amyloid precursor protein in a cell culture model of Alzheimer disease

Early intervention may be key to safe and effective therapies in patients with Alzheimer disease. Endosomal dysfunction is an early step in neurodegeneration. Endosomes are a major site of production of Aβ peptide from the processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP) by clipping enzymes (β- and γ-secretases). The β-secretase enzyme BACE1 requires acidic lumen pH for optimum function, and acid pH promotes Aβ aggregation. The Na(+)/H(+) exchanger NHE6 provides a leak pathway for protons, limiting luminal acidification by proton pumps. Like APP, NHE6 expression was induced upon differentiation of SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells and localized to an endosomal compartment. Therefore, we investigated whether NHE6 expression altered APP localization and processing in a stably transfected cell culture model of human APP expression. We show that co-expression with NHE6 or treatment with the Na(+)/H(+) ionophore monensin shifted APP away from the trans-Golgi network into early and recycling endosomes in HEK293 cells. NHE6 alkalinized the endosomal lumen, similar to monensin, and significantly attenuated APP processing and Aβ secretion. In contrast, Aβ production was elevated upon NHE6 knockdown. We show that NHE6 transcript and protein levels are lowered in Alzheimer brains relative to control. These findings, taken together with emerging genetic evidence linking endosomal Na(+)/H(+) exchangers with Alzheimer disease, suggest that proton leak pathways may regulate Aβ generation and contribute to disease etiology.

Spatiotemporal-specific lncRNAs in the brain, colon, liver and lung of macaque during development

Identification of spatiotemporal-specific lncRNAs during the development of multiple tissues in rhesus.

Integrated systems analysis reveals a molecular network underlying autism spectrum disorders

Autism is a complex disease whose etiology remains elusive. We integrated previously and newly generated data and developed a systems framework involving the interactome, gene expression and genome sequencing to identify a protein interaction module with members strongly enriched for autism candidate genes. Sequencing of 25 patients confirmed the involvement of this module in autism, which was subsequently validated using an independent cohort of over 500 patients. Expression of this module was dichotomized with a ubiquitously expressed subcomponent and another subcomponent preferentially expressed in the corpus callosum, which was significantly affected by our identified mutations in the network center. RNA-sequencing of the corpus callosum from patients with autism exhibited extensive gene mis-expression in this module, and our immunochemical analysis showed that the human corpus callosum is predominantly populated by oligodendrocyte cells. Analysis of functional genomic data further revealed a significant involvement of this module in the development of oligodendrocyte cells in mouse brain. Our analysis delineates a natural network involved in autism, helps uncover novel candidate genes for this disease and improves our understanding of its molecular pathology.

A vascular model of Tsc1 deficiency accelerates renal tumor formation with accompanying hemangiosarcomas

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal disease caused by inactivating mutations in either of the tumor suppressor genes TSC1 or TSC2. TSC-associated tumor growth is present in multiple tissues and organs including brain, kidney, liver, heart, lungs, and skin. In the kidney, TSC angiomyolipomas have aberrant vascular structures with abnormal endothelial cells, suggesting a role for endothelial mTORC1 function. In the current report, a genetically engineered mouse model (GEMM) with a conditional knockout allele of Tsc1 with a Darpp32-Cre allele displayed accelerated formation of both kidney cystadenomas and paw hemangiosarcomas. All mutant mice developed hemangiosarcomas on multiple paws by 6 weeks of age. By 16 weeks of age, the average mutant hind paw was 4.0 mm in diameter, nearly double the size of control mice. Furthermore, the hemangiosarcomas and kidney cystadenomas were responsive to intraperitoneal rapamycin treatment. Immunoblotting and immunostaining for phospho-S6 (pS6) and phospho-CAD showed that the effect of rapamycin on tumor size was through inhibition of the mTOR signaling pathway. Finally, elevated VEGF mRNA levels were also observed in hemangiosarcoma specimens. Because paw hemangiosarcomas are easily detectable and scorable for size and growth, this novel mouse model enables accelerated in vivo drug testing for therapies of TSC-related tumors.

IMPLICATIONS

These findings provide a strong rationale for simultaneous use of this conditional knockout mouse as an in vivo genetic model while seeking new cancer therapies for TSC-related tumors.

Genome-wide methylomic analysis of monozygotic twins discordant for adolescent depression

BACKGROUND

Adolescent depression is a common neuropsychiatric disorder that often continues into adulthood and is associated with a wide range of poor outcomes including suicide. Although numerous studies have looked at genetic markers associated with depression, the role of epigenetic variation remains relatively unexplored.

METHODS

Monozygotic (MZ) twins were selected from an adolescent twin study designed to investigate the interplay of genetic and environmental factors in the development of emotional and behavioral difficulties. There were 18 pairs of MZ twins identified in which one member scored consistently higher (group mean within the clinically significant range) on self-rated depression than the other. We assessed genome-wide patterns of DNA methylation in twin buccal cell DNA using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip from Illumina. Quality control and data preprocessing was undertaken using the wateRmelon package. Differentially methylated probes (DMPs) were identified using an analysis strategy taking into account both the significance and the magnitude of DNA methylation differences. The top differentially methylated DMP was successfully validated by bisulfite-pyrosequencing, and identified DMPs were tested in postmortem brain samples obtained from patients with major depressive disorder (n = 14) and matched control subjects (n = 15).

RESULTS

Two reproducible depression-associated DMPs were identified, including the top-ranked DMP that was located within STK32C, which encodes a serine/threonine kinase, of unknown function.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data indicate that DNA methylation differences are apparent in MZ twins discordant for adolescent depression and that some of the disease-associated variation observed in buccal cell DNA is mirrored in adult brain tissue obtained from individuals with clinical depression.

Map of open and closed chromatin domains in Drosophila genome

BACKGROUND

Chromatin compactness has been considered a major determinant of gene activity and has been associated with specific chromatin modifications in studies on a few individual genetic loci. At the same time, genome-wide patterns of open and closed chromatin have been understudied, and are at present largely predicted from chromatin modification and gene expression data. However the universal applicability of such predictions is not self-evident, and requires experimental verification.

RESULTS

We developed and implemented a high-throughput analysis for general chromatin sensitivity to DNase I which provides a comprehensive epigenomic assessment in a single assay. Contiguous domains of open and closed chromatin were identified by computational analysis of the data, and correlated to other genome annotations including predicted chromatin "states", individual chromatin modifications, nuclear lamina interactions, and gene expression. While showing that the widely trusted predictions of chromatin structure are correct in the majority of cases, we detected diverse "exceptions" from the conventional rules. We found a profound paucity of chromatin modifications in a major fraction of closed chromatin, and identified a number of loci where chromatin configuration is opposite to that expected from modification and gene expression patterns. Further, we observed that chromatin of large introns tends to be closed even when the genes are expressed, and that a significant proportion of active genes including their promoters are located in closed chromatin.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings reveal limitations of the existing predictive models, indicate novel mechanisms of epigenetic regulation, and provide important insights into genome organization and function.

Expression profile and gene age jointly shaped the genome-wide distribution of premature termination codons in a Drosophila melanogaster population

Widespread premature termination codon mutations (PTCs) were recently observed in human and fly populations. We took advantage of the population resequencing data in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel to investigate how the expression profile and the evolutionary age of genes shaped the allele frequency distribution of PTCs. After generating a high-quality data set of PTCs, we clustered genes harboring PTCs into three categories: genes encoding low-frequency PTCs (≤ 1.5%), moderate-frequency PTCs (1.5-10%), and high-frequency PTCs (>10%). All three groups show narrow transcription compared with PTC-free genes, with the moderate- and high-PTC frequency groups showing a pronounced pattern. Moreover, nearly half (42%) of the PTC-encoding genes are not expressed in any tissue. Interestingly, the moderate-frequency PTC group is strongly enriched for genes expressed in midgut, whereas genes harboring high-frequency PTCs tend to have sex-specific expression. We further find that although young genes born in the last 60 My compose a mere 9% of the genome, they represent 16%, 30%, and 50% of the genes containing low-, moderate-, and high-frequency PTCs, respectively. Among DNA-based and RNA-based duplicated genes, the child copy is approximately twice as likely to contain PTCs as the parent copy, whereas young de novo genes are as likely to encode PTCs as DNA-based duplicated new genes. Based on these results, we conclude that expression profile and gene age jointly shaped the landscape of PTC-mediated gene loss. Therefore, we propose that new genes may need a long time to become stably maintained after the origination.

The complex jujube genome provides insights into fruit tree biology

The jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.), a member of family Rhamnaceae, is a major dry fruit and a traditional herbal medicine for more than one billion people. Here we present a high-quality sequence for the complex jujube genome, the first genome sequence of Rhamnaceae, using an integrated strategy. The final assembly spans 437.65 Mb (98.6% of the estimated) with 321.45 Mb anchored to the 12 pseudo-chromosomes and contains 32,808 genes. The jujube genome has undergone frequent inter-chromosome fusions and segmental duplications, but no recent whole-genome duplication. Further analyses of the jujube-specific genes and transcriptome data from 15 tissues reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying some specific properties of the jujube. Its high vitamin C content can be attributed to a unique high level expression of genes involved in both biosynthesis and regeneration. Our study provides insights into jujube-specific biology and valuable genomic resources for the improvement of Rhamnaceae plants and other fruit trees.

The jujube is a major dry fruit crop in China and is commonly used for medicinal purposes. Here the authors sequence the genome and transcriptome of the most widely cultivated jujube cultivar, Dongzao, and highlight the genetic and molecular basis of agronomically important jujube traits, such as vitamin C content.

Divergence of gene body DNA methylation and evolution of plant duplicate genes

It has been shown that gene body DNA methylation is associated with gene expression. However, whether and how deviation of gene body DNA methylation between duplicate genes can influence their divergence remains largely unexplored. Here, we aim to elucidate the potential role of gene body DNA methylation in the fate of duplicate genes. We identified paralogous gene pairs from Arabidopsis and rice (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica) genomes and reprocessed their single-base resolution methylome data. We show that methylation in paralogous genes nonlinearly correlates with several gene properties including exon number/gene length, expression level and mutation rate. Further, we demonstrated that divergence of methylation level and pattern in paralogs indeed positively correlate with their sequence and expression divergences. This result held even after controlling for other confounding factors known to influence the divergence of paralogs. We observed that methylation level divergence might be more relevant to the expression divergence of paralogs than methylation pattern divergence. Finally, we explored the mechanisms that might give rise to the divergence of gene body methylation in paralogs. We found that exonic methylation divergence more closely correlates with expression divergence than intronic methylation divergence. We show that genomic environments (e.g., flanked by transposable elements and repetitive sequences) of paralogs generated by various duplication mechanisms are associated with the methylation divergence of paralogs. Overall, our results suggest that the changes in gene body DNA methylation could provide another avenue for duplicate genes to develop differential expression patterns and undergo different evolutionary fates in plant genomes.

Positive selection in nucleoporins challenges constraints on early expressed genes in Drosophila development

Developmental conservation among related species is a common generalization known as von Baer’s third law and implies that early stages of development are the most refractory to change. The “hourglass model” is an alternative view that proposes that middle stages are the most constrained during development. To investigate this issue, we undertook a genomic approach and provide insights into how natural selection operates on genes expressed during the first 24 h of Drosophila ontogeny in the six species of the melanogaster group for which whole genome sequences are available. Having studied the rate of evolution of more than 2,000 developmental genes, our results showed differential selective pressures at different moments of embryogenesis. In many Drosophila species, early zygotic genes evolved slower than maternal genes indicating that mid-embryogenesis is the stage most refractory to evolutionary change. Interestingly, positively selected genes were found in all embryonic stages even during the period with the highest developmental constraint, emphasizing that positive selection and negative selection are not mutually exclusive as it is often mistakenly considered. Among the fastest evolving genes, we identified a network of nucleoporins (Nups) as part of the maternal transcriptome. Specifically, the acceleration of Nups was driven by positive selection only in the more recently diverged species. Because many Nups are involved in hybrid incompatibilities between species of the Drosophila melanogaster subgroup, our results link rapid evolution of early developmental genes with reproductive isolation. In summary, our study revealed that even within functional groups of genes evolving under strong negative selection many positively selected genes could be recognized. Understanding these exceptions to the broad evolutionary conservation of early expressed developmental genes can shed light into relevant processes driving the evolution of species divergence.

Population- and sex-biased gene expression in the excretion organs of Drosophila melanogaster

Within species, levels of gene expression typically vary greatly between tissues, sexes, individuals, and populations. To investigate gene expression variation between sexes and populations in a single somatic tissue, we performed a quantitative analysis of the Malpighian tubule transcriptome in adult males and females of Drosophila melanogaster derived from two distinct populations (one from sub-Saharan Africa and one from northern Europe). We identified 2308 genes that differed in expression between the sexes and 2474 genes that differed in expression between populations at a false discovery rate of 5%. We also identified more than 1000 genes that showed a sex-by-population interaction in their expression. The genes that differed in expression between sexes showed enrichment for a wide variety of functions, although only 55% of them overlapped with sex-biased genes identified in whole-fly studies. The genes expressed differentially between populations included several that were previously implicated in adaptive regulatory evolution, an excess of cytochrome P450 genes, and many genes that were not detected in previous studies of whole flies. Our results demonstrate that there is abundant intraspecific gene expression variation within in a single, somatic tissue and uncover new candidates for adaptive regulatory evolution between populations.

Genetic susceptibility for chronic bronchitis in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Background

Chronic bronchitis (CB) is one of the classic phenotypes of COPD. The aims of our study were to investigate genetic variants associated with COPD subjects with CB relative to smokers with normal spirometry, and to assess for genetic differences between subjects with CB and without CB within the COPD population.

Methods

We analyzed data from current and former smokers from three cohorts: the COPDGene Study; GenKOLS (Bergen, Norway); and the Evaluation of COPD Longitudinally to Identify Predictive Surrogate Endpoints (ECLIPSE). CB was defined as having a cough productive of phlegm on most days for at least 3 consecutive months per year for at least 2 consecutive years. CB COPD cases were defined as having both CB and at least moderate COPD based on spirometry. Our primary analysis used smokers with normal spirometry as controls; secondary analysis was performed using COPD subjects without CB as controls. Genotyping was performed on Illumina platforms; results were summarized using fixed-effect meta-analysis.

Results

For CB COPD relative to smoking controls, we identified a new genome-wide significant locus on chromosome 11p15.5 (rs34391416, OR = 1.93, P = 4.99 × 10^-8) as well as significant associations of known COPD SNPs within FAM13A. In addition, a GWAS of CB relative to those without CB within COPD subjects showed suggestive evidence for association on 1q23.3 (rs114931935, OR = 1.88, P = 4.99 × 10^-7).

Conclusions

We found genome-wide significant associations with CB COPD on 4q22.1 (FAM13A) and 11p15.5 (EFCAB4A, CHID1 and AP2A2), and a locus associated with CB within COPD subjects on 1q23.3 (RPL31P11 and ATF6). This study provides further evidence that genetic variants may contribute to phenotypic heterogeneity of COPD.

Trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00608764, NCT00292552

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12931-014-0113-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

No evidence for a global male-specific lethal complex-mediated dosage compensation contribution to the demasculinization of the Drosophila melanogaster X chromosome

In Drosophila melanogaster males, the expression of X-linked genes is regulated by mechanisms that operate on a chromosomal scale. One such mechanism, male-specific lethal complex-dependent X-linked dosage compensation, is thought to broadly enhance the expression of male X-linked genes through two-fold transcriptional upregulation. The evolutionary consequences of this form of dosage compensation are not well understood, particularly with regard to genes more highly expressed in males. It has been observed the X chromosome arrangement of these male-biased genes is non-random, consistent with what one might expect if there is a selective advantage for male-biased genes to avoid dosage compensation. Separately, it has been noted that the male-specific lethal complex and its dosage compensation mechanism appear absent in some male tissues, thus providing a control for the selection hypothesis. Here we utilized publicly available datasets to reassess the arrangement of X-linked male-biased expressed genes after accounting for expression in tissues not dosage compensated by the male-specific lethal complex. Our results do not corroborate previous observations supporting organismal-wide detrimental effects by dosage compensation on X-linked male-biased expressed genes. We instead find no evidence that dosage compensation has played a role in the arrangement of dosage compensated male-biased genes on the X chromosome.

A tour through the transcriptional landscape of platelets

The RNA code found within a platelet and alterations of that code continue to shed light onto the mechanistic underpinnings of platelet function and dysfunction. It is now known that features of messenger RNA (mRNA) in platelets mirror those of nucleated cells. This review serves as a tour guide for readers interested in developing a greater understanding of platelet mRNA. The tour provides an in-depth and interactive examination of platelet mRNA, especially in the context of next-generation RNA sequencing. At the end of the expedition, the reader will have a better grasp of the topography of platelet mRNA and how it impacts platelet function in health and disease.