1
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Geller E, Noble MA, Morales M, Gockley J, Emera D, Uebbing S, Cotney JL, Noonan JP. Massively parallel disruption of enhancers active in human neural stem cells. Cell Rep 2024; 43:113693. [PMID: 38271204 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.113693] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2023] [Revised: 11/02/2023] [Accepted: 01/05/2024] [Indexed: 01/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Changes in gene regulation have been linked to the expansion of the human cerebral cortex and to neurodevelopmental disorders, potentially by altering neural progenitor proliferation. However, the effects of genetic variation within regulatory elements on neural progenitors remain obscure. We use sgRNA-Cas9 screens in human neural stem cells (hNSCs) to disrupt 10,674 genes and 26,385 conserved regions in 2,227 enhancers active in the developing human cortex and determine effects on proliferation. Genes with proliferation phenotypes are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders and show biased expression in specific fetal human brain neural progenitor populations. Although enhancer disruptions overall have weaker effects than gene disruptions, we identify enhancer disruptions that severely alter hNSC self-renewal. Disruptions in human accelerated regions, implicated in human brain evolution, also alter proliferation. Integrating proliferation phenotypes with chromatin interactions reveals regulatory relationships between enhancers and their target genes contributing to neurogenesis and potentially to human cortical evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evan Geller
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Mark A Noble
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Matheo Morales
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Jake Gockley
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Deena Emera
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Severin Uebbing
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Justin L Cotney
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - James P Noonan
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA; Department of Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA; Wu Tsai Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
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2
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Pasquini L, Pereira FL, Seddighi S, Zeng Y, Wei Y, Illán-Gala I, Vatsavayai SC, Friedberg A, Lee AJ, Brown JA, Spina S, Grinberg LT, Sirkis DW, Bonham LW, Yokoyama JS, Boxer AL, Kramer JH, Rosen HJ, Humphrey J, Gitler AD, Miller BL, Pollard KS, Ward ME, Seeley WW. FTLD targets brain regions expressing recently evolved genes. medRxiv 2023:2023.10.27.23297687. [PMID: 37961381 PMCID: PMC10635220 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.27.23297687] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2023]
Abstract
In frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), pathological protein aggregation is associated with a decline in human-specialized social-emotional and language functions. Most disease protein aggregates contain either TDP-43 (FTLD-TDP) or tau (FTLD-tau). Here, we explored whether FTLD targets brain regions that express genes containing human accelerated regions (HARs), conserved sequences that have undergone positive selection during recent human evolution. To this end, we used structural neuroimaging from patients with FTLD and normative human regional transcriptomic data to identify genes expressed in FTLD-targeted brain regions. We then integrated primate comparative genomic data to test our hypothesis that FTLD targets brain regions expressing recently evolved genes. In addition, we asked whether genes expressed in FTLD-targeted brain regions are enriched for genes that undergo cryptic splicing when TDP-43 function is impaired. We found that FTLD-TDP and FTLD-tau subtypes target brain regions that express overlapping and distinct genes, including many linked to neuromodulatory functions. Genes whose normative brain regional expression pattern correlated with FTLD cortical atrophy were strongly associated with HARs. Atrophy-correlated genes in FTLD-TDP showed greater overlap with TDP-43 cryptic splicing genes compared with atrophy-correlated genes in FTLD-tau. Cryptic splicing genes were enriched for HAR genes, and vice versa, but this effect was due to the confounding influence of gene length. Analyses performed at the individual-patient level revealed that the expression of HAR genes and cryptically spliced genes within putative regions of disease onset differed across FTLD-TDP subtypes. Overall, our findings suggest that FTLD targets brain regions that have undergone recent evolutionary specialization and provide intriguing potential leads regarding the transcriptomic basis for selective vulnerability in distinct FTLD molecular-anatomical subtypes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lorenzo Pasquini
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Neurology, Neuroscape, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Felipe L Pereira
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Sahba Seddighi
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Yi Zeng
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Yongbin Wei
- School of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China
| | - Ignacio Illán-Gala
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA and Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Department of Neurology, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Biomedical Research Institute, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
| | - Sarat C Vatsavayai
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Adit Friedberg
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA and Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Alex J Lee
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Jesse A Brown
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Salvatore Spina
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Lea T Grinberg
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Daniel W Sirkis
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Luke W Bonham
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Jennifer S Yokoyama
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Adam L Boxer
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Joel H Kramer
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Howard J Rosen
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Jack Humphrey
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
| | - Aaron D Gitler
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Bruce L Miller
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Katherine S Pollard
- Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Bakar Institute for Computational Health Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Michael E Ward
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - William W Seeley
- Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
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3
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Singh AK, Amar I, Ramadasan H, Kappagantula KS, Chavali S. Proteins with amino acid repeats constitute a rapidly evolvable and human-specific essentialome. Cell Rep 2023; 42:112811. [PMID: 37453061 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112811] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2023] [Revised: 05/30/2023] [Accepted: 06/29/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Protein products of essential genes, indispensable for organismal survival, are highly conserved and bring about fundamental functions. Interestingly, proteins that contain amino acid homorepeats that tend to evolve rapidly are enriched in eukaryotic essentialomes. Why are proteins with hypermutable homorepeats enriched in conserved and functionally vital essential proteins? We solve this functional versus evolutionary paradox by demonstrating that human essential proteins with homorepeats bring about crosstalk across biological processes through high interactability and have distinct regulatory functions affecting expansive global regulation. Importantly, essential proteins with homorepeats rapidly diverge with the amino acid substitutions frequently affecting functional sites, likely facilitating rapid adaptability. Strikingly, essential proteins with homorepeats influence human-specific embryonic and brain development, implying that the presence of homorepeats could contribute to the emergence of human-specific processes. Thus, we propose that homorepeat-containing essential proteins affecting species-specific traits can be potential intervention targets across pathologies, including cancers and neurological disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anjali K Singh
- Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati 517507, Andhra Pradesh, India
| | - Ishita Amar
- Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati 517507, Andhra Pradesh, India
| | - Harikrishnan Ramadasan
- Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati 517507, Andhra Pradesh, India
| | - Keertana S Kappagantula
- Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati 517507, Andhra Pradesh, India
| | - Sreenivas Chavali
- Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati 517507, Andhra Pradesh, India.
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4
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Quan Y, Zhang KX, Zhang HY. The gut microbiota links disease to human genome evolution. Trends Genet 2023; 39:451-461. [PMID: 36872184 DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2023.02.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2022] [Revised: 02/03/2023] [Accepted: 02/13/2023] [Indexed: 03/06/2023]
Abstract
A large number of studies have established a causal relationship between the gut microbiota and human disease. In addition, the composition of the microbiota is substantially influenced by the human genome. Modern medical research has confirmed that the pathogenesis of various diseases is closely related to evolutionary events in the human genome. Specific regions of the human genome known as human accelerated regions (HARs) have evolved rapidly over several million years since humans diverged from a common ancestor with chimpanzees, and HARs have been found to be involved in some human-specific diseases. Furthermore, the HAR-regulated gut microbiota has undergone rapid changes during human evolution. We propose that the gut microbiota may serve as an important mediator linking diseases to human genome evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuan Quan
- State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, PR China; Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, PR China
| | - Ke-Xin Zhang
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, PR China
| | - Hong-Yu Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, PR China; Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, PR China.
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5
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Guardiola-Ripoll M, Fatjó-Vilas M. A Systematic Review of the Human Accelerated Regions in Schizophrenia and Related Disorders: Where the Evolutionary and Neurodevelopmental Hypotheses Converge. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24. [PMID: 36835010 DOI: 10.3390/ijms24043597] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2022] [Revised: 02/03/2023] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 02/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that results from genetic and environmental factors interacting and disrupting neurodevelopmental trajectories. Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) are evolutionarily conserved genomic regions that have accumulated human-specific sequence changes. Thus, studies on the impact of HARs in the context of neurodevelopment, as well as with respect to adult brain phenotypes, have increased considerably in the last few years. Through a systematic approach, we aim to offer a comprehensive review of HARs' role in terms of human brain development, configuration, and cognitive abilities, as well as whether HARs modulate the susceptibility to neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. First, the evidence in this review highlights HARs' molecular functions in the context of the neurodevelopmental regulatory genetic machinery. Second, brain phenotypic analyses indicate that HAR genes' expression spatially correlates with the regions that suffered human-specific cortical expansion, as well as with the regional interactions for synergistic information processing. Lastly, studies based on candidate HAR genes and the global "HARome" variability describe the involvement of these regions in the genetic background of schizophrenia, but also in other neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders. Overall, the data considered in this review emphasise the crucial role of HARs in human-specific neurodevelopment processes and encourage future research on this evolutionary marker for a better understanding of the genetic basis of schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental-related psychiatric disorders. Accordingly, HARs emerge as interesting genomic regions that require further study in order to bridge the neurodevelopmental and evolutionary hypotheses in schizophrenia and other related disorders and phenotypes.
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6
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Levchenko A, Gusev F, Rogaev E. The evolutionary origin of psychosis. Front Psychiatry 2023; 14:1115929. [PMID: 36741116 PMCID: PMC9894884 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1115929] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2022] [Accepted: 01/05/2023] [Indexed: 01/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Imagination, the driving force of creativity, and primary psychosis are human-specific, since we do not observe behaviors in other species that would convincingly suggest they possess the same traits. Both these traits have been linked to the function of the prefrontal cortex, which is the most evolutionarily novel region of the human brain. A number of evolutionarily novel genetic and epigenetic changes that determine the human brain-specific structure and function have been discovered in recent years. Among them are genomic loci subjected to increased rates of single nucleotide substitutions in humans, called human accelerated regions. These mostly regulatory regions are involved in brain development and sometimes contain genetic variants that confer a risk for schizophrenia. On the other hand, neuroimaging data suggest that mind wandering and related phenomena (as a proxy of imagination) are in many ways similar to rapid eye movement dreaming, a function also present in non-human species. Furthermore, both functions are similar to psychosis in several ways: for example, the same brain areas are activated both in dreams and visual hallucinations. In the present Perspective we hypothesize that imagination is an evolutionary adaptation of dreaming, while primary psychosis results from deficient control by higher-order brain areas over imagination. In the light of this, human accelerated regions might be one of the key drivers in evolution of human imagination and the pathogenesis of psychotic disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anastasia Levchenko
- Institute of Translational Biomedicine, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Fedor Gusev
- Center for Genetics and Life Sciences, Department of Genetics, Sirius University of Science and Technology, Sochi, Russia.,Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
| | - Evgeny Rogaev
- Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.,Department of Psychiatry, UMass Chan Medical School, Shrewsbury, MA, United States
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7
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Mangan RJ, Alsina FC, Mosti F, Sotelo-Fonseca JE, Snellings DA, Au EH, Carvalho J, Sathyan L, Johnson GD, Reddy TE, Silver DL, Lowe CB. Adaptive sequence divergence forged new neurodevelopmental enhancers in humans. Cell 2022; 185:4587-4603.e23. [PMID: 36423581 PMCID: PMC10013929 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2022] [Revised: 09/08/2022] [Accepted: 10/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Searches for the genetic underpinnings of uniquely human traits have focused on human-specific divergence in conserved genomic regions, which reflects adaptive modifications of existing functional elements. However, the study of conserved regions excludes functional elements that descended from previously neutral regions. Here, we demonstrate that the fastest-evolved regions of the human genome, which we term "human ancestor quickly evolved regions" (HAQERs), rapidly diverged in an episodic burst of directional positive selection prior to the human-Neanderthal split, before transitioning to constraint within hominins. HAQERs are enriched for bivalent chromatin states, particularly in gastrointestinal and neurodevelopmental tissues, and genetic variants linked to neurodevelopmental disease. We developed a multiplex, single-cell in vivo enhancer assay to discover that rapid sequence divergence in HAQERs generated hominin-unique enhancers in the developing cerebral cortex. We propose that a lack of pleiotropic constraints and elevated mutation rates poised HAQERs for rapid adaptation and subsequent susceptibility to disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Riley J Mangan
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Fernando C Alsina
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Federica Mosti
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | | | - Daniel A Snellings
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Eric H Au
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Juliana Carvalho
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Laya Sathyan
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Graham D Johnson
- Center for Genomic and Computational Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705, USA; Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Timothy E Reddy
- Center for Genomic and Computational Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705, USA; Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Debra L Silver
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA; Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and Duke Regeneration Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA; Departments of Cell Biology and Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Craig B Lowe
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA; Center for Genomic and Computational Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705, USA.
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8
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Girskis KM, Stergachis AB, DeGennaro EM, Doan RN, Qian X, Johnson MB, Wang PP, Sejourne GM, Nagy MA, Pollina EA, Sousa AMM, Shin T, Kenny CJ, Scotellaro JL, Debo BM, Gonzalez DM, Rento LM, Yeh RC, Song JHT, Beaudin M, Fan J, Kharchenko PV, Sestan N, Greenberg ME, Walsh CA. Rewiring of human neurodevelopmental gene regulatory programs by human accelerated regions. Neuron 2021; 109:3239-3251.e7. [PMID: 34478631 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.08.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2020] [Revised: 06/02/2021] [Accepted: 08/06/2021] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
Human accelerated regions (HARs) are the fastest-evolving regions of the human genome, and many are hypothesized to function as regulatory elements that drive human-specific gene regulatory programs. We interrogate the in vitro enhancer activity and in vivo epigenetic landscape of more than 3,100 HARs during human neurodevelopment, demonstrating that many HARs appear to act as neurodevelopmental enhancers and that sequence divergence at HARs has largely augmented their neuronal enhancer activity. Furthermore, we demonstrate PPP1R17 to be a putative HAR-regulated gene that has undergone remarkable rewiring of its cell type and developmental expression patterns between non-primates and primates and between non-human primates and humans. Finally, we show that PPP1R17 slows neural progenitor cell cycle progression, paralleling the cell cycle length increase seen predominantly in primate and especially human neurodevelopment. Our findings establish HARs as key components in rewiring human-specific neurodevelopmental gene regulatory programs and provide an integrated resource to study enhancer activity of specific HARs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelly M Girskis
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Andrew B Stergachis
- Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Ellen M DeGennaro
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Ryan N Doan
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Xuyu Qian
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Matthew B Johnson
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Peter P Wang
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Gabrielle M Sejourne
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - M Aurel Nagy
- Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Elizabeth A Pollina
- Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - André M M Sousa
- Department of Neuroscience and Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Taehwan Shin
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, USA
| | - Connor J Kenny
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Julia L Scotellaro
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Brian M Debo
- Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Dilenny M Gonzalez
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Lariza M Rento
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Rebecca C Yeh
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Janet H T Song
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Marc Beaudin
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Jean Fan
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Peter V Kharchenko
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Nenad Sestan
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Michael E Greenberg
- Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Christopher A Walsh
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
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9
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Bhattacharyya U, Deshpande SN, Bhatia T, Thelma BK. Revisiting Schizophrenia from an Evolutionary Perspective: An Association Study of Recent Evolutionary Markers and Schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull 2021; 47:827-836. [PMID: 33350444 PMCID: PMC8759809 DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbaa179] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
The persistence of schizophrenia in human populations at a high prevalence and with a large heritability estimate despite reduced fertility and increased mortality rate is a Darwinian paradox. This may be likely if the genomic components that predispose to schizophrenia are also advantageous for the acquisition of important human traits, such as language and cognition. Accordingly, an emerging group of genomic markers of recent evolution in humans, namely human accelerated regions (HARs), since our divergence from chimpanzees, are gaining importance for neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia. We hypothesize that variants within HARs may affect the expression of genes under their control, thus contributing to disease etiology. A total of 49 HAR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were prioritized from the complete repertoire of HARs (n = 2737) based on their functional relevance and prevalence in the South Asian population. Test of association using 2 independent schizophrenia case-control cohorts of north Indian ethnicity (discovery: n = 930; replication: n = 1104) revealed 3 SNPs (rs3800926, rs3801844, and rs764453) from chromosome 7 and rs77047799 from chromosome 3 to be significantly associated (combined analysis: Bonferroni corrected P < .002-.000004). Of note, these SNPs were found to alter the expression of neurodevelopmental genes such as SLC25A13, MAD1L1, and ULK4; a few from the HOX gene family; and a few genes that are implicated in mitochondrial function. These SNPs may most likely alter binding sites of transcription factors, including TFCP2, MAFK, SREBF2, E2F1, and/or methylation signatures around these genes. These findings reiterate a neurodevelopmental basis of schizophrenia and also open up a promising avenue to investigate HAR-mediated mitochondrial dysfunction in schizophrenia etiology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - B K Thelma
- Department of Genetics, University of Delhi South Campus, New Delhi, India
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10
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Uebbing S, Gockley J, Reilly SK, Kocher AA, Geller E, Gandotra N, Scharfe C, Cotney J, Noonan JP. Massively parallel discovery of human-specific substitutions that alter enhancer activity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:e2007049118. [PMID: 33372131 PMCID: PMC7812811 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2007049118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Genetic changes that altered the function of gene regulatory elements have been implicated in the evolution of human traits such as the expansion of the cerebral cortex. However, identifying the particular changes that modified regulatory activity during human evolution remain challenging. Here we used massively parallel enhancer assays in neural stem cells to quantify the functional impact of >32,000 human-specific substitutions in >4,300 human accelerated regions (HARs) and human gain enhancers (HGEs), which include enhancers with novel activities in humans. We found that >30% of active HARs and HGEs exhibited differential activity between human and chimpanzee. We isolated the effects of human-specific substitutions from background genetic variation to identify the effects of genetic changes most relevant to human evolution. We found that substitutions interacted in both additive and nonadditive ways to modify enhancer function. Substitutions within HARs, which are highly constrained compared to HGEs, showed smaller effects on enhancer activity, suggesting that the impact of human-specific substitutions is buffered in enhancers with constrained ancestral functions. Our findings yield insight into how human-specific genetic changes altered enhancer function and provide a rich set of candidates for studies of regulatory evolution in humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Severin Uebbing
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Jake Gockley
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Steven K Reilly
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Acadia A Kocher
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Evan Geller
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Neeru Gandotra
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Curt Scharfe
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - Justin Cotney
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
| | - James P Noonan
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510;
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520
- Department of Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
- Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510
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11
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Takahashi Y, Terada T, Muto Y. Systems Level Analysis and Identification of Pathways and Key Genes Associated with Delirium. Genes (Basel) 2020; 11:genes11101225. [PMID: 33086708 PMCID: PMC7590056 DOI: 10.3390/genes11101225] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2020] [Revised: 10/15/2020] [Accepted: 10/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Delirium is a complex pathophysiological process, and multiple contributing mechanisms have been identified. However, it is largely unclear how the genes associated with delirium contribute and which of them play key roles. In this study, the genes associated with delirium were retrieved from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) and integrated through a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Delirium-associated genes formed a highly interconnected PPI subnetwork, indicating a high tendency to interact and agglomerate. Using the Molecular Complex Detection (MCODE) algorithm, we identified the top two delirium-relevant network modules, M1 and M5, that have the most significant enrichments for the delirium-related gene sets. Functional enrichment analysis showed that genes related to neurotransmitter receptor activity were enriched in both modules. Moreover, analyses with genes located in human accelerated regions (HARs) provided evidence that HAR-Brain genes were overrepresented in the delirium-relevant network modules. We found that four of the HAR-Brain genes, namely APP, PLCB1, NPY, and HTR2A, in the M1 module were highly connected and appeared to exhibit hub properties, which might play vital roles in delirium development. Further understanding of the function of the identified modules and member genes could help to identify therapeutic intervention targets and diagnostic biomarkers for delirium.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yukiko Takahashi
- United Graduate School of Drug Discovery and Medical Information Sciences, Gifu University, 1-1, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1194, Japan; (Y.T.); (T.T.)
- Department of Adult Nursing (Acute phase), Gifu University School of Medicine, 1-1, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1193, Japan
| | - Tomoyoshi Terada
- United Graduate School of Drug Discovery and Medical Information Sciences, Gifu University, 1-1, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1194, Japan; (Y.T.); (T.T.)
- Department of Functional Bioscience, Gifu University School of Medicine, 1-1, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1193, Japan
| | - Yoshinori Muto
- United Graduate School of Drug Discovery and Medical Information Sciences, Gifu University, 1-1, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1194, Japan; (Y.T.); (T.T.)
- Department of Functional Bioscience, Gifu University School of Medicine, 1-1, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1193, Japan
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +81-58-293-3241
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12
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Varma M, Paskov KM, Jung JY, Chrisman BS, Stockham NT, Washington PY, Wall DP. Outgroup Machine Learning Approach Identifies Single Nucleotide Variants in Noncoding DNA Associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Pac Symp Biocomput 2019; 24:260-271. [PMID: 30864328 PMCID: PMC6417813] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heritable neurodevelopmental disorder affecting 1 in 59 children. While noncoding genetic variation has been shown to play a major role in many complex disorders, the contribution of these regions to ASD susceptibility remains unclear. Genetic analyses of ASD typically use unaffected family members as controls; however, we hypothesize that this method does not effectively elevate variant signal in the noncoding region due to family members having subclinical phenotypes arising from common genetic mechanisms. In this study, we use a separate, unrelated outgroup of individuals with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurodegenerative condition with no known etiological overlap with ASD, as a control population. We use whole genome sequencing data from a large cohort of 2182 children with ASD and 379 controls with PSP, sequenced at the same facility with the same machines and variant calling pipeline, in order to investigate the role of noncoding variation in the ASD phenotype. We analyze seven major types of noncoding variants: microRNAs, human accelerated regions, hypersensitive sites, transcription factor binding sites, DNA repeat sequences, simple repeat sequences, and CpG islands. After identifying and removing batch effects between the two groups, we trained an ℓ1-regularized logistic regression classifier to predict ASD status from each set of variants. The classifier trained on simple repeat sequences performed well on a held-out test set (AUC-ROC = 0.960); this classifier was also able to differentiate ASD cases from controls when applied to a completely independent dataset (AUC-ROC = 0.960). This suggests that variation in simple repeat regions is predictive of the ASD phenotype and may contribute to ASD risk. Our results show the importance of the noncoding region and the utility of independent control groups in effectively linking genetic variation to disease phenotype for complex disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maya Varma
- Departments of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Kelley Marie Paskov
- Departments of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Jae-Yoon Jung
- Departments of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- Departments of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | | | | | | | - Dennis Paul Wall
- Departments of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- Departments of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
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Glinsky GV. Mechanistically Distinct Pathways of Divergent Regulatory DNA Creation Contribute to Evolution of Human-Specific Genomic Regulatory Networks Driving Phenotypic Divergence of Homo sapiens. Genome Biol Evol 2016; 8:2774-88. [PMID: 27503290 PMCID: PMC5630920 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evw185] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Thousands of candidate human-specific regulatory sequences (HSRS) have been identified, supporting the hypothesis that unique to human phenotypes result from human-specific alterations of genomic regulatory networks. Collectively, a compendium of multiple diverse families of HSRS that are functionally and structurally divergent from Great Apes could be defined as the backbone of human-specific genomic regulatory networks. Here, the conservation patterns analysis of 18,364 candidate HSRS was carried out requiring that 100% of bases must remap during the alignments of human, chimpanzee, and bonobo sequences. A total of 5,535 candidate HSRS were identified that are: (i) highly conserved in Great Apes; (ii) evolved by the exaptation of highly conserved ancestral DNA; (iii) defined by either the acceleration of mutation rates on the human lineage or the functional divergence from non-human primates. The exaptation of highly conserved ancestral DNA pathway seems mechanistically distinct from the evolution of regulatory DNA segments driven by the species-specific expansion of transposable elements. Genome-wide proximity placement analysis of HSRS revealed that a small fraction of topologically associating domains (TADs) contain more than half of HSRS from four distinct families. TADs that are enriched for HSRS and termed rapidly evolving in humans TADs (revTADs) comprise 0.8–10.3% of 3,127 TADs in the hESC genome. RevTADs manifest distinct correlation patterns between placements of human accelerated regions, human-specific transcription factor-binding sites, and recombination rates. There is a significant enrichment within revTAD boundaries of hESC-enhancers, primate-specific CTCF-binding sites, human-specific RNAPII-binding sites, hCONDELs, and H3K4me3 peaks with human-specific enrichment at TSS in prefrontal cortex neurons (P < 0.0001 in all instances). Present analysis supports the idea that phenotypic divergence of Homo sapiens is driven by the evolution of human-specific genomic regulatory networks via at least two mechanistically distinct pathways of creation of divergent sequences of regulatory DNA: (i) recombination-associated exaptation of the highly conserved ancestral regulatory DNA segments; (ii) human-specific insertions of transposable elements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gennadi V Glinsky
- Institute of Engineering in Medicine, University of California-San Diego
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Abstract
As a species, we possess unique biological features that distinguish us from other primates. Here, we review recent efforts to identify changes in gene regulation that drove the evolution of novel human phenotypes. We discuss genotype-directed comparisons of human and nonhuman primate genomes to identify human-specific genetic changes that may encode new regulatory functions. We also review phenotype-directed approaches, which use comparisons of gene expression or regulatory function in homologous human and nonhuman primate cells and tissues to identify changes in expression levels or regulatory activity that may be due to genetic changes in humans. Together, these studies are beginning to reveal the landscape of regulatory innovation in human evolution and point to specific regulatory changes for further study. Finally, we highlight two novel strategies to model human-specific regulatory functions in vivo: primate induced pluripotent stem cells and the generation of humanized mice by genome editing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven K Reilly
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510;
| | - James P Noonan
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510; .,Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511.,Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510
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15
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Abstract
The genetic changes underlying the dramatic differences in form and function between humans and other primates are largely unknown, although it is clear that gene regulatory changes play an important role. To identify regulatory sequences with potentially human-specific functions, we and others used comparative genomics to find non-coding regions conserved across mammals that have acquired many sequence changes in humans since divergence from chimpanzees. These regions are good candidates for performing human-specific regulatory functions. Here, we analysed the DNA sequence, evolutionary history, histone modifications, chromatin state and transcription factor (TF) binding sites of a combined set of 2649 non-coding human accelerated regions (ncHARs) and predicted that at least 30% of them function as developmental enhancers. We prioritized the predicted ncHAR enhancers using analysis of TF binding site gain and loss, along with the functional annotations and expression patterns of nearby genes. We then tested both the human and chimpanzee sequence for 29 ncHARs in transgenic mice, and found 24 novel developmental enhancers active in both species, 17 of which had very consistent patterns of activity in specific embryonic tissues. Of these ncHAR enhancers, five drove expression patterns suggestive of different activity for the human and chimpanzee sequence at embryonic day 11.5. The changes to human non-coding DNA in these ncHAR enhancers may modify the complex patterns of gene expression necessary for proper development in a human-specific manner and are thus promising candidates for understanding the genetic basis of human-specific biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- John A Capra
- Gladstone Institutes, University of California, , San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
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