A database of orthologous exons in primates for comparative analysis of RNA-seq data

RNA-seq technology facilitates the study of gene expression at the level of individual exons and transcripts. Moreover, RNA-seq enables unbiased comparative analysis of expression levels across species. Such analyses typically start by mapping sequenced reads to the appropriate reference genome before comparing expression levels across species. However, this comparison requires prior knowledge of orthology at the exon level. With this in mind, I constructed a database of orthologous exons across three primate species (human, chimpanzee, and rhesus macaque). The database facilitates cross-species comparative analysis of exon- and transcript-level regulation. A web application allowing for an easy database query: http://giladlab.uchicago.edu/orthoExon/

Functional comparison of innate immune signaling pathways in primates

Humans respond differently than other primates to a large number of infections. Differences in susceptibility to infectious agents between humans and other primates are probably due to inter-species differences in immune response to infection. Consistent with that notion, genes involved in immunity-related processes are strongly enriched among recent targets of positive selection in primates, suggesting that immune responses evolve rapidly, yet providing only indirect evidence for possible inter-species functional differences. To directly compare immune responses among primates, we stimulated primary monocytes from humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and studied the ensuing time-course regulatory responses. We find that, while the universal Toll-like receptor response is mostly conserved across primates, the regulatory response associated with viral infections is often lineage-specific, probably reflecting rapid host–virus mutual adaptation cycles. Additionally, human-specific immune responses are enriched for genes involved in apoptosis, as well as for genes associated with cancer and with susceptibility to infectious diseases or immune-related disorders. Finally, we find that chimpanzee-specific immune signaling pathways are enriched for HIV–interacting genes. Put together, our observations lend strong support to the notion that lineage-specific immune responses may help explain known inter-species differences in susceptibility to infectious diseases.

We know of a large number of diseases or medical conditions that affect humans more severely than non-human primates, such as AIDS, malaria, hepatitis B, and cancer. These differences likely arise from different immune responses to infection among species. However, due to the lack of comparative functional data across species, it remains unclear how the immune system of humans and other primates differ. In this work, we present the first genome-wide characterization of functional differences in innate immune responses between humans and our closest evolutionary relatives. Our results indicate that “core” immune responses, those that are critical to fight any invading pathogen, are the most conserved across primates and that much of the divergence in immune responses is observed in genes that are involved in response to specific microbial and viral agents. In addition, we show that human-specific immune responses are enriched for genes involved in apoptosis and cancer biology, as well as with genes previously associated with susceptibility to infectious diseases or immune-related disorders. Finally, we find that chimpanzee-specific immune signaling pathways are enriched for HIV–interacting genes. Our observations may therefore help explain known inter-species differences in susceptibility to infectious diseases.

Abstract LB-332: MDM4 transcription is discordantly regulated by common variants of p53

The transcription factor p53 is a central mediator of the DNA damage response programs controlling cell cycle arrest and apoptosis that are critical to the prevention of oncogenesis. Although p53 has been subject to intense study, the functional consequences of the common proline to arginine coding polymorphism at codon 72 have yet to be fully elucidated. We hypothesized that the previously reported difference in apoptotic potential between cells expressing the two common p53 alleles may be due in part to differences in each variant's ability to transcriptionally regulate downstream target genes. To test this, we used a combination of expression profiling and ChIP-on-chip techniques to identify differences in the transcriptional networks regulated by the alternate alleles of p53 in isogenic cell lines. Our results indicate that although the majority of p53 transcriptional targets are equivalently regulated by both allelic variants, a small number of genes are specifically regulated by the respective versions of p53. Surprisingly, among the genes differentially induced by alternate p53 variants is MDM4 (HDMX), a well-characterized regulator of p53 activity. We subsequently used luciferase expression assays to identify a functional site containing a putative p53 binding element within the MDM4 promoter that discordantly interacts with the two p53 variants. These data provide the first evidence that MDM4 transcription is directly mediated by p53, and suggest a mechanism that could contribute to previously-reported differences in apoptotic potential between the common p53 alleles.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-332.

Sex-specific and lineage-specific alternative splicing in primates

Comparative studies of gene regulation suggest an important role for natural selection in shaping gene expression patterns within and between species. Most of these studies, however, estimated gene expression levels using microarray probes designed to hybridize to only a small proportion of each gene. Here, we used recently developed RNA sequencing protocols, which sidestep this limitation, to assess intra- and interspecies variation in gene regulatory processes in considerably more detail than was previously possible. Specifically, we used RNA-seq to study transcript levels in humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques, using liver RNA samples from three males and three females from each species. Our approach allowed us to identify a large number of genes whose expression levels likely evolve under natural selection in primates. These include a subset of genes with conserved sexually dimorphic expression patterns across the three species, which we found to be enriched for genes involved in lipid metabolism. Our data also suggest that while alternative splicing is tightly regulated within and between species, sex-specific and lineage-specific changes in the expression of different splice forms are also frequent. Intriguingly, among genes in which a change in exon usage occurred exclusively in the human lineage, we found an enrichment of genes involved in anatomical structure and morphogenesis, raising the possibility that differences in the regulation of alternative splicing have been an important force in human evolution.

A signature of evolutionary constraint on a subset of ectopically expressed olfactory receptor genes

Olfactory receptor (OR) genes constitute the basis for the sense of smell. It has long been observed that a subset of mammalian OR genes are expressed in nonolfactory tissues, in addition to their expression in the olfactory epithelium. However, it is unknown whether OR genes have alternative functions in the nonolfactory tissues. Using a dedicated microarray, we surveyed OR gene expression in olfactory epithelium as well as a number of nonolfactory tissues, in human and chimpanzee. Our observations suggest that ectopically expressed OR orthologous genes are expressed in the same nonolfactory tissues in human and chimpanzee more often than expected by chance alone. Moreover, we found that the subset of orthologous OR genes with conserved ectopic expression evolve under stronger evolutionary constraint than OR genes expressed exclusively in the olfactory epithelium. Thus, although we cannot provide direct functional data, our observations are consistent with the notion that a subset of ectopically expressed OR genes have additional functions in nonolfactory tissues.

Gene regulation in primates evolves under tissue-specific selection pressures

Regulatory changes have long been hypothesized to play an important role in primate evolution. To identify adaptive regulatory changes in humans, we performed a genome-wide survey for genes in which regulation has likely evolved under natural selection. To do so, we used a multi-species microarray to measure gene expression levels in livers, kidneys, and hearts from six humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques. This comparative gene expression data allowed us to identify a large number of genes, as well as specific pathways, whose inter-species expression profiles are consistent with the action of stabilizing or directional selection on gene regulation. Among the latter set, we found an enrichment of genes involved in metabolic pathways, consistent with the hypothesis that shifts in diet underlie many regulatory adaptations in humans. In addition, we found evidence for tissue-specific selection pressures, as well as lower rates of protein evolution for genes in which regulation evolves under natural selection. These observations are consistent with the notion that adaptive circumscribed changes in gene regulation have fewer deleterious pleiotropic effects compared with changes at the protein sequence level.

Natural selection on genes that underlie human disease susceptibility

What evolutionary forces shape genes that contribute to the risk of human disease? Do similar selective pressures act on alleles that underlie simple versus complex disorders [1-3]? Answers to these questions will shed light onto the origin of human disorders (e.g., [4]) and help to predict the population frequencies of alleles that contribute to disease risk, with important implications for the efficient design of mapping studies [5-7]. As a first step toward addressing these questions, we created a hand-curated version of the Mendelian Inheritance in Man database (OMIM). We then examined selective pressures on Mendelian-disease genes, genes that contribute to complex-disease risk, and genes known to be essential in mouse by analyzing patterns of human polymorphism and of divergence between human and rhesus macaque. We found that Mendelian-disease genes appear to be under widespread purifying selection, especially when the disease mutations are dominant (rather than recessive). In contrast, the class of genes that influence complex-disease risk shows little signs of evolutionary conservation, possibly because this category includes targets of both purifying and positive selection.

Selective constraints in experimentally defined primate regulatory regions

Changes in gene regulation may be important in evolution. However, the evolutionary properties of regulatory mutations are currently poorly understood. This is partly the result of an incomplete annotation of functional regulatory DNA in many species. For example, transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs), a major component of eukaryotic regulatory architecture, are typically short, degenerate, and therefore difficult to differentiate from randomly occurring, nonfunctional sequences. Furthermore, although sites such as TFBSs can be computationally predicted using evolutionary conservation as a criterion, estimates of the true level of selective constraint (defined as the fraction of strongly deleterious mutations occurring at a locus) in regulatory regions will, by definition, be upwardly biased in datasets that are a priori evolutionarily conserved. Here we investigate the fitness effects of regulatory mutations using two complementary datasets of human TFBSs that are likely to be relatively free of ascertainment bias with respect to evolutionary conservation but, importantly, are supported by experimental data. The first is a collection of almost >2,100 human TFBSs drawn from the literature in the TRANSFAC database, and the second is derived from several recent high-throughput chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with genomic microarray (ChIP-chip) analyses. We also define a set of putative cis-regulatory modules (pCRMs) by spatially clustering multiple TFBSs that regulate the same gene. We find that a relatively high proportion (∼37%) of mutations at TFBSs are strongly deleterious, similar to that at a 2-fold degenerate protein-coding site. However, constraint is significantly reduced in human and chimpanzee pCRMS and ChIP-chip sequences, relative to macaques. We estimate that the fraction of regulatory mutations that have been driven to fixation by positive selection in humans is not significantly different from zero. We also find that the level of selective constraint in our TFBSs, pCRMs, and ChIP-chip sequences is negatively correlated with the expression breadth of the regulated gene, whereas the opposite relationship holds at that gene's nonsynonymous and synonymous sites. Finally, we find that the rate of protein evolution in a transcription factor appears to be positively correlated with the breadth of expression of the gene it regulates. Our study suggests that strongly deleterious regulatory mutations are considerably more likely (1.6-fold) to occur in tissue-specific than in housekeeping genes, implying that there is a fitness cost to increasing “complexity” of gene expression.

Changes in gene expression have been suggested to play a major role in mammalian evolution. In eukaryotes, gene expression is primarily controlled by sites, such as transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs), located in the noncoding region of the genome. The majority of these TFBSs remain unannotated, however, because they are typically short, degenerate, and laborious to identify experimentally. As a result, the effects of mutations in TFBSs on organism fitness remain poorly understood. We collected a dataset of TFBSs derived from the experimental biology literature and recent high-throughput studies to estimate the proportions of new mutations in TFBSs that have strongly deleterious and strongly beneficial effects upon organism fitness. We find that a relatively high proportion of new mutations in TFBSs are strongly deleterious, although it appears that relatively few are adaptive. We also demonstrate that the fraction of strongly deleterious regulatory mutations is correlated with the breadth of expression of the regulated gene. Thus, ubiquitously expressed genes are likely to experience fewer deleterious regulatory mutations than those expressed in a small number of tissues.

An evolutionarily conserved sexual signature in the primate brain

The question of a potential biological sexual signature in the human brain is a heavily disputed subject. In order to provide further insight into this issue, we used an evolutionary approach to identify genes with sex differences in brain expression level among primates. We reasoned that expression patterns important to uphold key male and female characteristics may be conserved during evolution. We selected cortex for our studies because this specific brain region is responsible for many higher behavioral functions. We compared gene expression profiles in the occipital cortex of male and female humans (Homo sapiens, a great ape) and cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis, an old world monkey), two catarrhine species that show abundant morphological sexual dimorphism, as well as in common marmosets (Callithrix Jacchus, a new world monkey) which are relatively sexually monomorphic. We identified hundreds of genes with sex-biased expression patterns in humans and macaques, while fewer than ten were differentially expressed between the sexes in marmosets. In primates, a general rule is that many of the morphological and behavioral sexual dimorphisms seen in polygamous species, such as macaques, are typically less pronounced in monogamous species such as the marmosets. Our observations suggest that this correlation may also be reflected in the extent of sex-biased gene expression in the brain. We identified 85 genes with common sex-biased expression, in both human and macaque and 2 genes, X inactivation-specific transcript (XIST) and Heat shock factor binding protein 1 (HSBP1), that were consistently sex-biased in the female direction in human, macaque, and marmoset. These observations imply a conserved signature of sexual gene expression dimorphism in cortex of primates. Further, we found that the coding region of female-biased genes is more evolutionarily constrained compared to the coding region of both male-biased and non sex-biased brain expressed genes. We found genes with conserved sexual gene expression dimorphism in the occipital cortex of humans, cynomolgus macaques, and common marmosets. Genes within sexual expression profiles may underlie important functional differences between the sexes, with possible importance during primate evolution.

The contribution of genetics versus environment to behavioral differences between the sexes is a fundamental question in neuroscience. We hypothesized that some differences between the sexes might be partially explained by sexually dependent gene expression differences in the brain. We further speculated that if differences in gene expression between males and females are functionally important, they may be conserved in the evolution of primates. To test these hypotheses, we measured gene expression in the brains of male and female primates from three species: humans (Homo sapiens), macaques (Macaca fascicularis), and marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). Our results point to a conserved signature of sexual gene expression dimorphism in the brains of primates. Interestingly, we found that genes with conserved sexual gene expression dimorphism in the brain also evolve under more evolutionary constraint, compared with other genes, suggesting that they may have important roles during evolution of sex in primates. Moreover, we found higher evolutionary constrains in the coding regions of female-biased genes as compared to both male-biased and non sex-biased brain expressed genes. The study of sex dimorphic genes may in the future shed light on the basis of psychiatric diseases with differences in prevalence between the sexes.

A combination of genomic approaches reveals the role of FOXO1a in regulating an oxidative stress response pathway

BACKGROUND

While many of the phenotypic differences between human and chimpanzee may result from changes in gene regulation, only a handful of functionally important regulatory differences are currently known. As a first step towards identifying transcriptional pathways that have been remodeled in the human lineage, we focused on a transcription factor, FOXO1a, which we had previously found to be up-regulated in the human liver compared to that of three other primate species. We concentrated on this gene because of its known role in the regulation of metabolism and in longevity.

METHODOLOGY

Using a combination of expression profiling following siRNA knockdown and chromatin immunoprecipitation in a human liver cell line, we identified eight novel direct transcriptional targets of FOXO1a. This set includes the gene for thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP), the expression of which is directly repressed by FOXO1a. The thioredoxin-interacting protein is known to inhibit the reducing activity of thioredoxin (TRX), thereby hindering the cellular response to oxidative stress and affecting life span.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results provide an explanation for the repeated observations that differences in the regulation of FOXO transcription factors affect longevity. Moreover, we found that TXNIP is down-regulated in human compared to chimpanzee, consistent with the up-regulation of its direct repressor FOXO1a in humans, and with differences in longevity between the two species.

Using reporter gene assays to identify cis regulatory differences between humans and chimpanzees

Most phenotypic differences between human and chimpanzee are likely to result from differences in gene regulation, rather than changes to protein-coding regions. To date, however, only a handful of human-chimpanzee nucleotide differences leading to changes in gene regulation have been identified. To hone in on differences in regulatory elements between human and chimpanzee, we focused on 10 genes that were previously found to be differentially expressed between the two species. We then designed reporter gene assays for the putative human and chimpanzee promoters of the 10 genes. Of seven promoters that we found to be active in human liver cell lines, human and chimpanzee promoters had significantly different activity in four cases, three of which recapitulated the gene expression difference seen in the microarray experiment. For these three genes, we were therefore able to demonstrate that a change in cis influences expression differences between humans and chimpanzees. Moreover, using site-directed mutagenesis on one construct, the promoter for the DDA3 gene, we were able to identify three nucleotides that together lead to a cis regulatory difference between the species. High-throughput application of this approach can provide a map of regulatory element differences between humans and our close evolutionary relatives.

The “Domino Theory” of Gene Death: Gradual and Mass Gene Extinction Events in Three Lineages of Obligate Symbiotic Bacterial Pathogens

During the adaptation of an organism to a parasitic lifestyle, various gene functions may be rendered superfluous due to the fact that the host may supply these needs. As a consequence, obligate symbiotic bacterial pathogens tend to undergo reductive genomic evolution through gene death (nonfunctionalization or pseudogenization) and deletion. Here, we examine the evolutionary sequence of gene-death events during the process of genome miniaturization in three bacterial species that have experienced extensive genome reduction: Mycobacterium leprae, Shigella flexneri, and Salmonella typhi. We infer that in all three lineages, the distribution of functional categories is similar in pseudogenes and genes but different from that of absent genes. Based on an analysis of evolutionary distances, we propose a two-step "domino effect" model for reductive genome evolution. The process starts with a gradual gene-by-gene-death sequence of events. Eventually, a crucial gene within a complex pathway or network is rendered nonfunctional triggering a "mass gene extinction" of the dependent genes. In contrast to published reports according to which genes belonging to certain functional categories are prone to nonfunctionalization more frequently and earlier than genes belonging to other functional categories, we could discern no characteristic regularity in the temporal order of function loss.