scholarly journals Allele-specific expression elucidates cis-regulatory logic

PLoS Genetics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. e1007690
Author(s):  
Sofie Y. N. Delbare ◽  
Andrew G. Clark
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Joseph Tomlinson ◽  
Shawn W. Polson ◽  
Jing Qiu ◽  
Juniper A. Lake ◽  
William Lee ◽  
...  

AbstractDifferential abundance of allelic transcripts in a diploid organism, commonly referred to as allele specific expression (ASE), is a biologically significant phenomenon and can be examined using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from RNA-seq. Quantifying ASE aids in our ability to identify and understand cis-regulatory mechanisms that influence gene expression, and thereby assist in identifying causal mutations. This study examines ASE in breast muscle, abdominal fat, and liver of commercial broiler chickens using variants called from a large sub-set of the samples (n = 68). ASE analysis was performed using a custom software called VCF ASE Detection Tool (VADT), which detects ASE of biallelic SNPs using a binomial test. On average ~ 174,000 SNPs in each tissue passed our filtering criteria and were considered informative, of which ~ 24,000 (~ 14%) showed ASE. Of all ASE SNPs, only 3.7% exhibited ASE in all three tissues, with ~ 83% showing ASE specific to a single tissue. When ASE genes (genes containing ASE SNPs) were compared between tissues, the overlap among all three tissues increased to 20.1%. Our results indicate that ASE genes show tissue-specific enrichment patterns, but all three tissues showed enrichment for pathways involved in translation.


Genetics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 195 (3) ◽  
pp. 1157-1166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandrine Lagarrigue ◽  
Lisa Martin ◽  
Farhad Hormozdiari ◽  
Pierre-François Roux ◽  
Calvin Pan ◽  
...  

PLoS ONE ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. e55261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quan-Xiang Wei ◽  
Rainer Claus ◽  
Thomas Hielscher ◽  
Daniel Mertens ◽  
Aparna Raval ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alwyn Clark Go

Speciation occurs when reproductive barriers prevent the exchange of genetic information between individuals. A common form of reproductive barrier between species capable of interbreeding is hybrid sterility. Genomic incompatibilities between the divergent genomes of different species contribute to a reduction in hybrid fitness. These incompatibilities continue to accumulate after speciation, therefore, young divergent taxa with incomplete reproductive isolation are important in understating the genetics leading to speciation. Here, I use two Drosophila subspecies pairs. The first is D. willistoni consisting of D. w. willistoni and D. w. winge. The second subspecies pair is D. pseudoobscura, which is composed of D. p. pseudoobscura and D. p. bogotana. Both subspecies pairs are at the early stages of speciation and show incomplete reproductive isolation through unidirectional hybrid male sterility. In this thesis, I performed an exploratory survey of genome-wide expression analysis using RNA-sequencing on D. willistoni and determined the extent of regulatory divergence between the subspecies using allele-specific expression analysis. I found that misexpressed genes showed a degree of tissue specificity and that the sterile male hybrids had a higher proportion of misexpressed genes in the testes relative to the fertile hybrids. The analysis of regulatory divergence between this subspecies pair found a large (66-70%) proportion of genes with conserved regulatory elements. Of the genes showing evidence or regulatory divergence between subspecies, cis-regulatory divergence was more common than other types. In the D. pseudoobscura subspecies pair, I compared sequence and expression divergence and found no support for directional selection driving gene misexpression in their hybrids. Allele-specific expression analysis revealed that compensatory cis-trans mutations partly explained gene misexpression in the hybrids. The remaining hybrid misexpression occurs due to interacting gene networks or possible co-option of cis-regulatory elements by divergent transacting factors. Overall, the results of this thesis highlight the role of regulatory interactions in a hybrid genome and how these interactions could lead to hybrid breakdown by disrupting gene interaction networks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioan Filip ◽  
Rose Orenbuch ◽  
Junfei Zhao ◽  
Gulam Manji ◽  
Evangelina López de Maturana ◽  
...  

AbstractEfficient presentation of aberrant peptide fragments by the human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I) genes is necessary for immune detection and killing of cancer cells. Patient HLA-I genotypes are known to impact the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, and the somatic loss of HLA-I heterozygosity has been established as a factor in immune evasion. While global deregulated expression of HLA-I has been reported in different tumor types, the role of HLA-I allele-specific expression loss – that is, the preferential RNA expression loss of specific HLA-I alleles – has not been fully characterized in cancer. In the present study, we quantified HLA-I allele-specific expression (ASE) across eleven TCGA tumor types using a novel method from input RNA and whole-exome sequencing data. Allele-specific loss in at least one of the three HLA-I genes (ASE loss) was pervasive and associated to worse overall survival across tumor types, including pancreatic adenocarcinomas, prostate carcinomas and glioblastomas, among others. In particular, our analysis shows that detection of neoantigens with binding affinity to the specific HLA-I genes subject to ASE loss was a top prognostic indicator of overall survival. Additionally, we found that ASE loss hindered immunotherapy in retrospective analyses. Together, these results highlight the prevalence of HLA-I ASE loss – a previously uncharacterized phenomenon in cancer – and provide initial evidence of its clinical significance in cancer prognosis and immunotherapy treatment.


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