1
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Benjamin KJM, Chen Q, Eagles NJ, Huuki-Myers LA, Collado-Torres L, Stolz JM, Pertea G, Shin JH, Paquola ACM, Hyde TM, Kleinman JE, Jaffe AE, Han S, Weinberger DR. Analysis of gene expression in the postmortem brain of neurotypical Black Americans reveals contributions of genetic ancestry. Nat Neurosci 2024; 27:1064-1074. [PMID: 38769152 PMCID: PMC11156587 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-024-01636-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2023] [Accepted: 03/29/2024] [Indexed: 05/22/2024]
Abstract
Ancestral differences in genomic variation affect the regulation of gene expression; however, most gene expression studies have been limited to European ancestry samples or adjusted to identify ancestry-independent associations. Here, we instead examined the impact of genetic ancestry on gene expression and DNA methylation in the postmortem brain tissue of admixed Black American neurotypical individuals to identify ancestry-dependent and ancestry-independent contributions. Ancestry-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs), transcripts and gene networks, while notably not implicating neurons, are enriched for genes related to the immune response and vascular tissue and explain up to 26% of heritability for ischemic stroke, 27% of heritability for Parkinson disease and 30% of heritability for Alzheimer's disease. Ancestry-associated DEGs also show general enrichment for the heritability of diverse immune-related traits but depletion for psychiatric-related traits. We also compared Black and non-Hispanic white Americans, confirming most ancestry-associated DEGs. Our results delineate the extent to which genetic ancestry affects differences in gene expression in the human brain and the implications for brain illness risk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kynon J M Benjamin
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
| | - Qiang Chen
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | | | | | - Leonardo Collado-Torres
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Center for Computational Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Joshua M Stolz
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Geo Pertea
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Joo Heon Shin
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Apuã C M Paquola
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Thomas M Hyde
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Joel E Kleinman
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Andrew E Jaffe
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Neumora Therapeutics, Watertown, MA, USA
| | - Shizhong Han
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
| | - Daniel R Weinberger
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
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2
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Evans P, Nagai T, Konkashbaev A, Zhou D, Knapik EW, Gamazon ER. Transcriptome-Wide Association Studies (TWAS): Methodologies, Applications, and Challenges. Curr Protoc 2024; 4:e981. [PMID: 38314955 PMCID: PMC10846672 DOI: 10.1002/cpz1.981] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2024]
Abstract
Transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) methodologies aim to identify genetic effects on phenotypes through the mediation of gene transcription. In TWAS, in silico models of gene expression are trained as functions of genetic variants and then applied to genome-wide association study (GWAS) data. This post-GWAS analysis identifies gene-trait associations with high interpretability, enabling follow-up functional genomics studies and the development of genetics-anchored resources. We provide an overview of commonly used TWAS approaches, their advantages and limitations, and some widely used applications. © 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick Evans
- Division of Genetic Medicine and Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
| | - Taylor Nagai
- Division of Genetic Medicine and Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
| | - Anuar Konkashbaev
- Division of Genetic Medicine and Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
| | - Dan Zhou
- Division of Genetic Medicine and Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
| | - Ela W Knapik
- Division of Genetic Medicine and Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
| | - Eric R Gamazon
- Division of Genetic Medicine and Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
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3
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Peyrégne S, Slon V, Kelso J. More than a decade of genetic research on the Denisovans. Nat Rev Genet 2024; 25:83-103. [PMID: 37723347 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-023-00643-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/19/2023] [Indexed: 09/20/2023]
Abstract
Denisovans, a group of now extinct humans who lived in Eastern Eurasia in the Middle and Late Pleistocene, were first identified from DNA sequences just over a decade ago. Only ten fragmentary remains from two sites have been attributed to Denisovans based entirely on molecular information. Nevertheless, there has been great interest in using genetic data to understand Denisovans and their place in human history. From the reconstruction of a single high-quality genome, it has been possible to infer their population history, including events of admixture with other human groups. Additionally, the identification of Denisovan DNA in the genomes of present-day individuals has provided insights into the timing and routes of dispersal of ancient modern humans into Asia and Oceania, as well as the contributions of archaic DNA to the physiology of present-day people. In this Review, we synthesize more than a decade of research on Denisovans, reconcile controversies and summarize insights into their population history and phenotype. We also highlight how our growing knowledge about Denisovans has provided insights into our own evolutionary history.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stéphane Peyrégne
- Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Viviane Slon
- Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
- Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
- The Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Janet Kelso
- Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
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4
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Piszczek L, Kaczanowska J, Haubensak W. Towards correlative archaeology of the human mind. Biol Chem 2024; 405:5-12. [PMID: 37819768 PMCID: PMC10687516 DOI: 10.1515/hsz-2023-0199] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/20/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023]
Abstract
Retracing human cognitive origins started out at the systems level with the top-down interpretation of archaeological records spanning from man-made artifacts to endocasts of ancient skulls. With emerging evolutionary genetics and organoid technologies, it is now possible to deconstruct evolutionary processes on a molecular/cellular level from the bottom-up by functionally testing archaic alleles in experimental models. The current challenge is to complement these approaches with novel strategies that allow a holistic reconstruction of evolutionary patterns across human cognitive domains. We argue that computational neuroarcheology can provide such a critical mesoscale framework at the brain network-level, linking molecular/cellular (bottom-up) to systems (top-down) level data for the correlative archeology of the human mind.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lukasz Piszczek
- Department of Neuronal Cell Biology, Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna, A-Vienna, Austria
| | | | - Wulf Haubensak
- Department of Neuronal Cell Biology, Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna, A-Vienna, Austria
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna Biocenter (VBC), Campus-Vienna-Biocenter 1, A-1030Vienna, Austria
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5
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Edwards CL, Engel JA, de Labastida Rivera F, Ng SS, Corvino D, Montes de Oca M, Frame TC, Chauhan SB, Singh SS, Kumar A, Wang Y, Na J, Mukhopadhyay P, Lee JS, Nylen S, Sundar S, Kumar R, Engwerda CR. A molecular signature for IL-10-producing Th1 cells in protozoan parasitic diseases. JCI Insight 2023; 8:e169362. [PMID: 37917177 PMCID: PMC10807716 DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.169362] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 11/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Control of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) depends on proinflammatory Th1 cells that activate infected tissue macrophages to kill resident intracellular parasites. However, proinflammatory cytokines produced by Th1 cells can damage tissues and require tight regulation. Th1 cell IL-10 production is an important cell-autologous mechanism to prevent such damage. However, IL-10-producing Th1 (type 1 regulatory; Tr1) cells can also delay control of parasites and the generation of immunity following drug treatment or vaccination. To identify molecules to target in order to alter the balance between Th1 and Tr1 cells for improved antiparasitic immunity, we compared the molecular and phenotypic profiles of Th1 and Tr1 cells in experimental VL caused by Leishmania donovani infection of C57BL/6J mice. We also identified a shared Tr1 cell protozoan signature by comparing the transcriptional profiles of Tr1 cells from mice with experimental VL and malaria. We identified LAG3 as an important coinhibitory receptor in patients with VL and experimental VL, and we reveal tissue-specific heterogeneity of coinhibitory receptor expression by Tr1 cells. We also discovered a role for the transcription factor Pbx1 in suppressing CD4+ T cell cytokine production. This work provides insights into the development and function of CD4+ T cells during protozoan parasitic infections and identifies key immunoregulatory molecules.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chelsea L. Edwards
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia
| | | | | | - Susanna S. Ng
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- Griffith University, School of Natural Sciences, Nathan, Australia
- Institute of Experimental Oncology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Dillon Corvino
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- Institute of Experimental Oncology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | | | - Teija C.M. Frame
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia
| | | | | | - Awnish Kumar
- Centre of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
| | - Yulin Wang
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- Griffith University, School of Natural Sciences, Nathan, Australia
| | - Jinrui Na
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia
| | | | - Jason S. Lee
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia
- University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia
| | - Susanne Nylen
- Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
| | | | - Rajiv Kumar
- Centre of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
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6
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Velazquez-Arcelay K, Colbran LL, McArthur E, Brand CM, Rinker DC, Siemann JK, McMahon DG, Capra JA. Archaic Introgression Shaped Human Circadian Traits. Genome Biol Evol 2023; 15:evad203. [PMID: 38095367 PMCID: PMC10719892 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evad203] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/07/2023] [Indexed: 12/17/2023] Open
Abstract
When the ancestors of modern Eurasians migrated out of Africa and interbred with Eurasian archaic hominins, namely, Neanderthals and Denisovans, DNA of archaic ancestry integrated into the genomes of anatomically modern humans. This process potentially accelerated adaptation to Eurasian environmental factors, including reduced ultraviolet radiation and increased variation in seasonal dynamics. However, whether these groups differed substantially in circadian biology and whether archaic introgression adaptively contributed to human chronotypes remain unknown. Here, we traced the evolution of chronotype based on genomes from archaic hominins and present-day humans. First, we inferred differences in circadian gene sequences, splicing, and regulation between archaic hominins and modern humans. We identified 28 circadian genes containing variants with potential to alter splicing in archaics (e.g., CLOCK, PER2, RORB, and RORC) and 16 circadian genes likely divergently regulated between present-day humans and archaic hominins, including RORA. These differences suggest the potential for introgression to modify circadian gene expression. Testing this hypothesis, we found that introgressed variants are enriched among expression quantitative trait loci for circadian genes. Supporting the functional relevance of these regulatory effects, we found that many introgressed alleles have associations with chronotype. Strikingly, the strongest introgressed effects on chronotype increase morningness, consistent with adaptations to high latitude in other species. Finally, we identified several circadian loci with evidence of adaptive introgression or latitudinal clines in allele frequency. These findings identify differences in circadian gene regulation between modern humans and archaic hominins and support the contribution of introgression via coordinated effects on variation in human chronotype.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Laura L Colbran
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Evonne McArthur
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Colin M Brand
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, SanFrancisco, California, USA
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, SanFrancisco, California, USA
| | - David C Rinker
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Justin K Siemann
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Douglas G McMahon
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - John A Capra
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, SanFrancisco, California, USA
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, SanFrancisco, California, USA
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7
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Benjamin KJM, Chen Q, Eagles NJ, Huuki-Myers LA, Collado-Torres L, Stolz JM, Pertea G, Shin JH, Paquola ACM, Hyde TM, Kleinman JE, Jaffe AE, Han S, Weinberger DR. Genetic and environmental contributions to ancestry differences in gene expression in the human brain. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.03.28.534458. [PMID: 37034760 PMCID: PMC10081196 DOI: 10.1101/2023.03.28.534458] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
Ancestral differences in genomic variation are determining factors in gene regulation; however, most gene expression studies have been limited to European ancestry samples or adjusted for ancestry to identify ancestry-independent associations. We instead examined the impact of genetic ancestry on gene expression and DNA methylation (DNAm) in admixed African/Black American neurotypical individuals to untangle effects of genetic and environmental factors. Ancestry-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs), transcripts, and gene networks, while notably not implicating neurons, are enriched for genes related to immune response and vascular tissue and explain up to 26% of heritability for ischemic stroke, 27% of heritability for Parkinson's disease, and 30% of heritability for Alzhemier's disease. Ancestry-associated DEGs also show general enrichment for heritability of diverse immune-related traits but depletion for psychiatric-related traits. The cell-type enrichments and direction of effects vary by brain region. These DEGs are less evolutionarily constrained and are largely explained by genetic variations; roughly 15% are predicted by DNAm variation implicating environmental exposures. We also compared Black and White Americans, confirming most of these ancestry-associated DEGs. Our results highlight how environment and genetic background affect genetic ancestry differences in gene expression in the human brain and affect risk for brain illness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kynon J M Benjamin
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Qiang Chen
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | | | | | - Leonardo Collado-Torres
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Center for Computational Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Joshua M Stolz
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Geo Pertea
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Joo Heon Shin
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Apuã C M Paquola
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Thomas M Hyde
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Joel E Kleinman
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Andrew E Jaffe
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Neumora Therapeutics, Watertown, MA, USA
| | - Shizhong Han
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Daniel R Weinberger
- Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
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8
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Brand CM, Colbran LL, Capra JA. Resurrecting the alternative splicing landscape of archaic hominins using machine learning. Nat Ecol Evol 2023; 7:939-953. [PMID: 37142741 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02053-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2022] [Accepted: 03/29/2023] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Alternative splicing contributes to adaptation and divergence in many species. However, it has not been possible to directly compare splicing between modern and archaic hominins. Here, we unmask the recent evolution of this previously unobservable regulatory mechanism by applying SpliceAI, a machine-learning algorithm that identifies splice-altering variants (SAVs), to high-coverage genomes from three Neanderthals and a Denisovan. We discover 5,950 putative archaic SAVs, of which 2,186 are archaic-specific and 3,607 also occur in modern humans via introgression (244) or shared ancestry (3,520). Archaic-specific SAVs are enriched in genes that contribute to traits potentially relevant to hominin phenotypic divergence, such as the epidermis, respiration and spinal rigidity. Compared to shared SAVs, archaic-specific SAVs occur in sites under weaker selection and are more common in genes with tissue-specific expression. Further underscoring the importance of negative selection on SAVs, Neanderthal lineages with low effective population sizes are enriched for SAVs compared to Denisovan and shared SAVs. Finally, we find that nearly all introgressed SAVs in humans were shared across the three Neanderthals, suggesting that older SAVs were more tolerated in human genomes. Our results reveal the splicing landscape of archaic hominins and identify potential contributions of splicing to phenotypic differences among hominins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin M Brand
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Laura L Colbran
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - John A Capra
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
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9
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Rong S, Neil CR, Welch A, Duan C, Maguire S, Meremikwu IC, Meyerson M, Evans BJ, Fairbrother WG. Large-scale functional screen identifies genetic variants with splicing effects in modern and archaic humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2218308120. [PMID: 37192163 PMCID: PMC10214146 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2218308120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2022] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans coexisted and interbred with other hominins which later became extinct. These archaic hominins are known to us only through fossil records and for two cases, genome sequences. Here, we engineer Neanderthal and Denisovan sequences into thousands of artificial genes to reconstruct the pre-mRNA processing patterns of these extinct populations. Of the 5,169 alleles tested in this massively parallel splicing reporter assay (MaPSy), we report 962 exonic splicing mutations that correspond to differences in exon recognition between extant and extinct hominins. Using MaPSy splicing variants, predicted splicing variants, and splicing quantitative trait loci, we show that splice-disrupting variants experienced greater purifying selection in anatomically modern humans than that in Neanderthals. Adaptively introgressed variants were enriched for moderate-effect splicing variants, consistent with positive selection for alternative spliced alleles following introgression. As particularly compelling examples, we characterized a unique tissue-specific alternative splicing variant at the adaptively introgressed innate immunity gene TLR1, as well as a unique Neanderthal introgressed alternative splicing variant in the gene HSPG2 that encodes perlecan. We further identified potentially pathogenic splicing variants found only in Neanderthals and Denisovans in genes related to sperm maturation and immunity. Finally, we found splicing variants that may contribute to variation among modern humans in total bilirubin, balding, hemoglobin levels, and lung capacity. Our findings provide unique insights into natural selection acting on splicing in human evolution and demonstrate how functional assays can be used to identify candidate causal variants underlying differences in gene regulation and phenotype.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephen Rong
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Christopher R. Neil
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Anastasia Welch
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Chaorui Duan
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Samantha Maguire
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Ijeoma C. Meremikwu
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Malcolm Meyerson
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
| | - Ben J. Evans
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ONL8S 4K1, Canada
| | - William G. Fairbrother
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI02912
- Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute of Brown University, Providence, RI02912
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10
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Rotival M. Archaic hominin traits through the splicing lens. Nat Ecol Evol 2023:10.1038/s41559-023-02045-5. [PMID: 37142740 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02045-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Maxime Rotival
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR2000, Human Evolutionary Genetics Unit, Paris, France.
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11
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Yermakovich D, Pankratov V, Võsa U, Yunusbayev B, Dannemann M. Long-range regulatory effects of Neandertal DNA in modern humans. Genetics 2023; 223:6957427. [PMID: 36560850 PMCID: PMC9991505 DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyac188] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2022] [Revised: 10/13/2022] [Accepted: 12/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The admixture between modern humans and Neandertals has resulted in ∼2% of the genomes of present-day non-Africans being composed of Neandertal DNA. Introgressed Neandertal DNA has been demonstrated to significantly affect the transcriptomic landscape in people today and via this molecular mechanism influence phenotype variation as well. However, little is known about how much of that regulatory impact is mediated through long-range regulatory effects that have been shown to explain ∼20% of expression variation. Here we identified 60 transcription factors (TFs) with their top cis-eQTL SNP in GTEx being of Neandertal ancestry and predicted long-range Neandertal DNA-induced regulatory effects by screening for the predicted target genes of those TFs. We show that the TFs form a significantly connected protein-protein interaction network. Among them are JUN and PRDM5, two brain-expressed TFs that have their predicted target genes enriched in regions devoid of Neandertal DNA. Archaic cis-eQTLs for the 60 TFs include multiple candidates for local adaptation, some of which show significant allele frequency increases over the last ∼10,000 years. A large proportion of the cis-eQTL-associated archaic SNPs have additional associations with various immune traits, schizophrenia, blood cell type composition and anthropometric measures. Finally, we demonstrate that our results are consistent with those of Neandertal DNA-associated empirical trans-eQTLs. Our results suggest that Neandertal DNA significantly influences regulatory networks, that its regulatory reach goes beyond the 40% of genomic sequence it still covers in present-day non-Africans and that via the investigated mechanism Neandertal DNA influences the phenotypic variation in people today.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danat Yermakovich
- Centre for Genomics, Evolution and Medicine, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
| | - Vasili Pankratov
- Centre for Genomics, Evolution and Medicine, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
| | - Urmo Võsa
- Estonian Genome Centre, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
| | - Bayazit Yunusbayev
- Centre for Genomics, Evolution and Medicine, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
| | | | - Michael Dannemann
- Centre for Genomics, Evolution and Medicine, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
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12
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Nayak S, Coleman PL, Ladányi E, Nitin R, Gustavson DE, Fisher SE, Magne CL, Gordon RL. The Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) Framework for Understanding Musicality-Language Links Across the Lifespan. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2022; 3:615-664. [PMID: 36742012 PMCID: PMC9893227 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00079] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2021] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 04/18/2023]
Abstract
Using individual differences approaches, a growing body of literature finds positive associations between musicality and language-related abilities, complementing prior findings of links between musical training and language skills. Despite these associations, musicality has been often overlooked in mainstream models of individual differences in language acquisition and development. To better understand the biological basis of these individual differences, we propose the Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) framework. This novel integrative framework posits that musical and language-related abilities likely share some common genetic architecture (i.e., genetic pleiotropy) in addition to some degree of overlapping neural endophenotypes, and genetic influences on musically and linguistically enriched environments. Drawing upon recent advances in genomic methodologies for unraveling pleiotropy, we outline testable predictions for future research on language development and how its underlying neurobiological substrates may be supported by genetic pleiotropy with musicality. In support of the MAPLE framework, we review and discuss findings from over seventy behavioral and neural studies, highlighting that musicality is robustly associated with individual differences in a range of speech-language skills required for communication and development. These include speech perception-in-noise, prosodic perception, morphosyntactic skills, phonological skills, reading skills, and aspects of second/foreign language learning. Overall, the current work provides a clear agenda and framework for studying musicality-language links using individual differences approaches, with an emphasis on leveraging advances in the genomics of complex musicality and language traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Srishti Nayak
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Psychology, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA
| | - Peyton L. Coleman
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Enikő Ladányi
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Linguistics, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Rachana Nitin
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Daniel E. Gustavson
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Simon E. Fisher
- Language and Genetics Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Cyrille L. Magne
- Department of Psychology, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA
- PhD Program in Literacy Studies, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA
| | - Reyna L. Gordon
- Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA
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13
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Reilly PF, Tjahjadi A, Miller SL, Akey JM, Tucci S. The contribution of Neanderthal introgression to modern human traits. Curr Biol 2022; 32:R970-R983. [PMID: 36167050 PMCID: PMC9741939 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Neanderthals, our closest extinct relatives, lived in western Eurasia from 400,000 years ago until they went extinct around 40,000 years ago. DNA retrieved from ancient specimens revealed that Neanderthals mated with modern human contemporaries. As a consequence, introgressed Neanderthal DNA survives scattered across the human genome such that 1-4% of the genome of present-day people outside Africa are inherited from Neanderthal ancestors. Patterns of Neanderthal introgressed genomic sequences suggest that Neanderthal alleles had distinct fates in the modern human genetic background. Some Neanderthal alleles facilitated human adaptation to new environments such as novel climate conditions, UV exposure levels and pathogens, while others had deleterious consequences. Here, we review the body of work on Neanderthal introgression over the past decade. We describe how evolutionary forces shaped the genomic landscape of Neanderthal introgression and highlight the impact of introgressed alleles on human biology and phenotypic variation.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Audrey Tjahjadi
- Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | | | - Joshua M Akey
- Lewis Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Serena Tucci
- Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
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14
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Vilgalys TP, Fogel AS, Anderson JA, Mututua RS, Warutere JK, Siodi IL, Kim SY, Voyles TN, Robinson JA, Wall JD, Archie EA, Alberts SC, Tung J. Selection against admixture and gene regulatory divergence in a long-term primate field study. Science 2022; 377:635-641. [PMID: 35926022 PMCID: PMC9682493 DOI: 10.1126/science.abm4917] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Genetic admixture is central to primate evolution. We combined 50 years of field observations of immigration and group demography with genomic data from ~9 generations of hybrid baboons to investigate the consequences of admixture in the wild. Despite no obvious fitness costs to hybrids, we found signatures of selection against admixture similar to those described for archaic hominins. These patterns were concentrated near genes where ancestry is strongly associated with gene expression. Our analyses also show that introgression is partially predictable across the genome. This study demonstrates the value of integrating genomic and field data for revealing how "genomic signatures of selection" (e.g., reduced introgression in low-recombination regions) manifest in nature; moreover, it underscores the importance of other primates as living models for human evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tauras P. Vilgalys
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,Section of Genetic Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Arielle S. Fogel
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,University Program in Genetics and Genomics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Jordan A. Anderson
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | | | | | | | - Sang Yoon Kim
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Tawni N. Voyles
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | | | - Jeffrey D. Wall
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Elizabeth A. Archie
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
| | - Susan C. Alberts
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,Duke University Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Jenny Tung
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,Duke University Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA,Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Canada,Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany,Corresponding author
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15
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Andirkó A, Boeckx C. Brain region-specific effects of nearly fixed sapiens-derived alleles. BMC Genom Data 2022; 23:36. [PMID: 35546225 PMCID: PMC9097168 DOI: 10.1186/s12863-022-01048-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2021] [Accepted: 04/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
The availability of high-coverage genomes of our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, and the emergence of large, tissue-specific databases of modern human genetic variation, offer the possibility of probing the effects of modern-derived alleles in specific tissues, such as the brain, and its specific regions. While previous research has explored the effects of introgressed variants in gene expression, the effects of Homo sapiens-specific gene expression variability are still understudied. Here we identify derived, Homo sapiens-specific high-frequency (≥90%) alleles that are associated with differential gene expression across 15 brain structures derived from the GTEx database. We show that regulation by these derived variants targets regions under positive selection more often than expected by chance, and that high-frequency derived alleles lie in functional categories related to transcriptional regulation. Our results highlight the role of these variants in gene regulation in specific regions like the cerebellum and pituitary.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandro Andirkó
- University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.,University of Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Cedric Boeckx
- University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. .,University of Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems, Barcelona, Spain. .,ICREA, Barcelona, Spain.
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16
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Polygenic score accuracy in ancient samples: Quantifying the effects of allelic turnover. PLoS Genet 2022; 18:e1010170. [PMID: 35522704 PMCID: PMC9116686 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2021] [Revised: 05/18/2022] [Accepted: 03/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Polygenic scores link the genotypes of ancient individuals to their phenotypes, which are often unobservable, offering a tantalizing opportunity to reconstruct complex trait evolution. In practice, however, interpretation of ancient polygenic scores is subject to numerous assumptions. For one, the genome-wide association (GWA) studies from which polygenic scores are derived, can only estimate effect sizes for loci segregating in contemporary populations. Therefore, a GWA study may not correctly identify all loci relevant to trait variation in the ancient population. In addition, the frequencies of trait-associated loci may have changed in the intervening years. Here, we devise a theoretical framework to quantify the effect of this allelic turnover on the statistical properties of polygenic scores as functions of population genetic dynamics, trait architecture, power to detect significant loci, and the age of the ancient sample. We model the allele frequencies of loci underlying trait variation using the Wright-Fisher diffusion, and employ the spectral representation of its transition density to find analytical expressions for several error metrics, including the expected sample correlation between the polygenic scores of ancient individuals and their true phenotypes, referred to as polygenic score accuracy. Our theory also applies to a two-population scenario and demonstrates that allelic turnover alone may explain a substantial percentage of the reduced accuracy observed in cross-population predictions, akin to those performed in human genetics. Finally, we use simulations to explore the effects of recent directional selection, a bias-inducing process, on the statistics of interest. We find that even in the presence of bias, weak selection induces minimal deviations from our neutral expectations for the decay of polygenic score accuracy. By quantifying the limitations of polygenic scores in an explicit evolutionary context, our work lays the foundation for the development of more sophisticated statistical procedures to analyze both temporally and geographically resolved polygenic scores.
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17
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Brand CM, Colbran LL, Capra JA. Predicting Archaic Hominin Phenotypes from Genomic Data. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet 2022; 23:591-612. [PMID: 35440148 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-genom-111521-121903] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Ancient DNA provides a powerful window into the biology of extant and extinct species, including humans' closest relatives: Denisovans and Neanderthals. Here, we review what is known about archaic hominin phenotypes from genomic data and how those inferences have been made. We contend that understanding the influence of variants on lower-level molecular phenotypes-such as gene expression and protein function-is a promising approach to using ancient DNA to learn about archaic hominin traits. Molecular phenotypes have simpler genetic architectures than organism-level complex phenotypes, and this approach enables moving beyond association studies by proposing hypotheses about the effects of archaic variants that are testable in model systems. The major challenge to understanding archaic hominin phenotypes is broadening our ability to accurately map genotypes to phenotypes, but ongoing advances ensure that there will be much more to learn about archaic hominin phenotypes from their genomes. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, Volume 23 is October 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin M Brand
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA; , .,Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
| | - Laura L Colbran
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - John A Capra
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA; , .,Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
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18
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Integrative transcriptomic, evolutionary, and causal inference framework for region-level analysis: Application to COVID-19. NPJ Genom Med 2022; 7:24. [PMID: 35318325 PMCID: PMC8940898 DOI: 10.1038/s41525-022-00296-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2021] [Accepted: 02/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
We developed an integrative transcriptomic, evolutionary, and causal inference framework for a deep region-level analysis, which integrates several published approaches and a new summary-statistics-based methodology. To illustrate the framework, we applied it to understanding the host genetics of COVID-19 severity. We identified putative causal genes, including SLC6A20, CXCR6, CCR9, and CCR5 in the locus on 3p21.31, quantifying their effect on mediating expression and on severe COVID-19. We confirmed that individuals who carry the introgressed archaic segment in the locus have a substantially higher risk of developing the severe disease phenotype, estimating its contribution to expression-mediated heritability using a new summary-statistics-based approach we developed here. Through a large-scale phenome-wide scan for the genes in the locus, several potential complications, including inflammatory, immunity, olfactory, and gustatory traits, were identified. Notably, the introgressed segment showed a much higher concentration of expression-mediated causal effect on severity (0.9–11.5 times) than the entire locus, explaining, on average, 15.7% of the causal effect. The region-level framework (implemented in publicly available software, SEGMENT-SCAN) has important implications for the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of disease and the rational design of potentially novel therapeutics.
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19
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Chen HH, Petty LE, North KE, McCormick JB, Fisher-Hoch SP, Gamazon ER, Below JE. OUP accepted manuscript. Hum Mol Genet 2022; 31:3191-3205. [PMID: 35157052 PMCID: PMC9476627 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddac039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2021] [Revised: 01/17/2022] [Accepted: 01/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Type 2 diabetes is a complex, systemic disease affected by both genetic and environmental factors. Previous research has identified genetic variants associated with type 2 diabetes risk; however, gene regulatory changes underlying progression to metabolic dysfunction are still largely unknown. We investigated RNA expression changes that occur during diabetes progression using a two-stage approach. In our discovery stage, we compared changes in gene expression using two longitudinally collected blood samples from subjects whose fasting blood glucose transitioned to a level consistent with type 2 diabetes diagnosis between the time points against those who did not with a novel analytical network approach. Our network methodology identified 17 networks, one of which was significantly associated with transition status. This 822-gene network harbors many genes novel to the type 2 diabetes literature but is also significantly enriched for genes previously associated with type 2 diabetes. In the validation stage, we queried associations of genetically determined expression with diabetes-related traits in a large biobank with linked electronic health records. We observed a significant enrichment of genes in our identified network whose genetically determined expression is associated with type 2 diabetes and other metabolic traits and validated 31 genes that are not near previously reported type 2 diabetes loci. Finally, we provide additional functional support, which suggests that the genes in this network are regulated by enhancers that operate in human pancreatic islet cells. We present an innovative and systematic approach that identified and validated key gene expression changes associated with type 2 diabetes transition status and demonstrated their translational relevance in a large clinical resource.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hung-Hsin Chen
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and Division of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Lauren E Petty
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and Division of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Kari E North
- Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Joseph B McCormick
- The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health, Brownsville, TX 78520, USA
| | - Susan P Fisher-Hoch
- The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health, Brownsville, TX 78520, USA
| | - Eric R Gamazon
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and Division of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
- Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK
| | - Jennifer E Below
- To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1-615-343-1655;
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20
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Human immune diversity: from evolution to modernity. Nat Immunol 2021; 22:1479-1489. [PMID: 34795445 DOI: 10.1038/s41590-021-01058-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2021] [Accepted: 09/17/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
The extreme diversity of the human immune system, forged and maintained throughout evolutionary history, provides a potent defense against opportunistic pathogens. At the same time, this immune variation is the substrate upon which a plethora of immune-associated diseases develop. Genetic analysis suggests that thousands of individually weak loci together drive up to half of the observed immune variation. Intense selection maintains this genetic diversity, even selecting for the introgressed Neanderthal or Denisovan alleles that have reintroduced variation lost during the out-of-Africa migration. Variations in age, sex, diet, environmental exposure, and microbiome each potentially explain the residual variation, with proof-of-concept studies demonstrating both plausible mechanisms and correlative associations. The confounding interaction of many of these variables currently makes it difficult to assign definitive contributions. Here, we review the current state of play in the field, identify the key unknowns in the causality of immune variation, and identify the multidisciplinary pathways toward an improved understanding.
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21
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Colbran LL, Johnson MR, Mathieson I, Capra JA. Tracing the Evolution of Human Gene Regulation and Its Association with Shifts in Environment. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 13:evab237. [PMID: 34718543 PMCID: PMC8576593 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
As humans populated the world, they adapted to many varying environmental factors, including climate, diet, and pathogens. Because many of these adaptations were mediated by multiple noncoding variants with small effects on gene regulation, it has been difficult to link genomic signals of selection to specific genes, and to describe the regulatory response to selection. To overcome this challenge, we adapted PrediXcan, a machine learning method for imputing gene regulation from genotype data, to analyze low-coverage ancient human DNA (aDNA). First, we used simulated genomes to benchmark strategies for adapting PrediXcan to increase robustness to incomplete data. Applying the resulting models to 490 ancient Eurasians, we found that genes with the strongest divergent regulation among ancient populations with hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, and agricultural lifestyles are enriched for metabolic and immune functions. Next, we explored the contribution of divergent gene regulation to two traits with strong evidence of recent adaptation: dietary metabolism and skin pigmentation. We found enrichment for divergent regulation among genes proposed to be involved in diet-related local adaptation, and the predicted effects on regulation often suggest explanations for known signals of selection, for example, at FADS1, GPX1, and LEPR. In contrast, skin pigmentation genes show little regulatory change over a 38,000-year time series of 2,999 ancient Europeans, suggesting that adaptation mainly involved large-effect coding variants. This work demonstrates that combining aDNA with present-day genomes is informative about the biological differences among ancient populations, the role of gene regulation in adaptation, and the relationship between genetic diversity and complex traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura L Colbran
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Maya R Johnson
- School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt University, USA
- Department of Computer Science, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Iain Mathieson
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA
| | - John A Capra
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, USA
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, USA
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, USA
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, USA
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22
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Gordon RL, Ravignani A, Hyland Bruno J, Robinson CM, Scartozzi A, Embalabala R, Niarchou M, Cox NJ, Creanza N. Linking the genomic signatures of human beat synchronization and learned song in birds. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200329. [PMID: 34420388 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0329] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The development of rhythmicity is foundational to communicative and social behaviours in humans and many other species, and mechanisms of synchrony could be conserved across species. The goal of the current paper is to explore evolutionary hypotheses linking vocal learning and beat synchronization through genomic approaches, testing the prediction that genetic underpinnings of birdsong also contribute to the aetiology of human interactions with musical beat structure. We combined state-of-the-art-genomic datasets that account for underlying polygenicity of these traits: birdsong genome-wide transcriptomics linked to singing in zebra finches, and a human genome-wide association study of beat synchronization. Results of competitive gene set analysis revealed that the genetic architecture of human beat synchronization is significantly enriched for birdsong genes expressed in songbird Area X (a key nucleus for vocal learning, and homologous to human basal ganglia). These findings complement ethological and neural evidence of the relationship between vocal learning and beat synchronization, supporting a framework of some degree of common genomic substrates underlying rhythm-related behaviours in two clades, humans and songbirds (the largest evolutionary radiation of vocal learners). Future cross-species approaches investigating the genetic underpinnings of beat synchronization in a broad evolutionary context are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Reyna L Gordon
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Andrea Ravignani
- Comparative Bioacoustics Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | | | - Cristina M Robinson
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Alyssa Scartozzi
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Rebecca Embalabala
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Maria Niarchou
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Division of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
| | -
- 23andMe, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA
| | - Nancy J Cox
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Division of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Nicole Creanza
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.,Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.,Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
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23
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Barbiero P, Viñas Torné R, Lió P. Graph Representation Forecasting of Patient's Medical Conditions: Toward a Digital Twin. Front Genet 2021; 12:652907. [PMID: 34603366 PMCID: PMC8481902 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.652907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2021] [Accepted: 06/24/2021] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Objective: Modern medicine needs to shift from a wait and react, curative discipline to a preventative, interdisciplinary science aiming at providing personalized, systemic, and precise treatment plans to patients. To this purpose, we propose a "digital twin" of patients modeling the human body as a whole and providing a panoramic view over individuals' conditions. Methods: We propose a general framework that composes advanced artificial intelligence (AI) approaches and integrates mathematical modeling in order to provide a panoramic view over current and future pathophysiological conditions. Our modular architecture is based on a graph neural network (GNN) forecasting clinically relevant endpoints (such as blood pressure) and a generative adversarial network (GAN) providing a proof of concept of transcriptomic integrability. Results: We tested our digital twin model on two simulated clinical case studies combining information at organ, tissue, and cellular level. We provided a panoramic overview over current and future patient's conditions by monitoring and forecasting clinically relevant endpoints representing the evolution of patient's vital parameters using the GNN model. We showed how to use the GAN to generate multi-tissue expression data for blood and lung to find associations between cytokines conditioned on the expression of genes in the renin-angiotensin pathway. Our approach was to detect inflammatory cytokines, which are known to have effects on blood pressure and have previously been associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (e.g., CXCR6, XCL1, and others). Significance: The graph representation of a computational patient has potential to solve important technological challenges in integrating multiscale computational modeling with AI. We believe that this work represents a step forward toward next-generation devices for precision and predictive medicine.
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24
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Irving-Pease EK, Muktupavela R, Dannemann M, Racimo F. Quantitative Human Paleogenetics: What can Ancient DNA Tell us About Complex Trait Evolution? Front Genet 2021; 12:703541. [PMID: 34422004 PMCID: PMC8371751 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.703541] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2021] [Accepted: 07/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Genetic association data from national biobanks and large-scale association studies have provided new prospects for understanding the genetic evolution of complex traits and diseases in humans. In turn, genomes from ancient human archaeological remains are now easier than ever to obtain, and provide a direct window into changes in frequencies of trait-associated alleles in the past. This has generated a new wave of studies aiming to analyse the genetic component of traits in historic and prehistoric times using ancient DNA, and to determine whether any such traits were subject to natural selection. In humans, however, issues about the portability and robustness of complex trait inference across different populations are particularly concerning when predictions are extended to individuals that died thousands of years ago, and for which little, if any, phenotypic validation is possible. In this review, we discuss the advantages of incorporating ancient genomes into studies of trait-associated variants, the need for models that can better accommodate ancient genomes into quantitative genetic frameworks, and the existing limits to inferences about complex trait evolution, particularly with respect to past populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evan K. Irving-Pease
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Rasa Muktupavela
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Michael Dannemann
- Center for Genomics, Evolution and Medicine, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Fernando Racimo
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
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25
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Ahlquist KD, Bañuelos MM, Funk A, Lai J, Rong S, Villanea FA, Witt KE. Our Tangled Family Tree: New Genomic Methods Offer Insight into the Legacy of Archaic Admixture. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 13:evab115. [PMID: 34028527 PMCID: PMC8480178 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Revised: 05/07/2021] [Accepted: 05/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The archaic ancestry present in the human genome has captured the imagination of both scientists and the wider public in recent years. This excitement is the result of new studies pushing the envelope of what we can learn from the archaic genetic information that has survived for over 50,000 years in the human genome. Here, we review the most recent ten years of literature on the topic of archaic introgression, including the current state of knowledge on Neanderthal and Denisovan introgression, as well as introgression from other as-yet unidentified archaic populations. We focus this review on four topics: 1) a reimagining of human demographic history, including evidence for multiple admixture events between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other archaic populations; 2) state-of-the-art methods for detecting archaic ancestry in population-level genomic data; 3) how these novel methods can detect archaic introgression in modern African populations; and 4) the functional consequences of archaic gene variants, including how those variants were co-opted into novel function in modern human populations. The goal of this review is to provide a simple-to-access reference for the relevant methods and novel data, which has changed our understanding of the relationship between our species and its siblings. This body of literature reveals the large degree to which the genetic legacy of these extinct hominins has been integrated into the human populations of today.
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Affiliation(s)
- K D Ahlquist
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Mayra M Bañuelos
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Alyssa Funk
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Jiaying Lai
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Stephen Rong
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Fernando A Villanea
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Kelsey E Witt
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
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26
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Weiss CV, Harshman L, Inoue F, Fraser HB, Petrov DA, Ahituv N, Gokhman D. The cis-regulatory effects of modern human-specific variants. eLife 2021; 10:e63713. [PMID: 33885362 PMCID: PMC8062137 DOI: 10.7554/elife.63713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2020] [Accepted: 03/30/2021] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes enabled the discovery of sequences that differ between modern and archaic humans, the majority of which are noncoding. However, our understanding of the regulatory consequences of these differences remains limited, in part due to the decay of regulatory marks in ancient samples. Here, we used a massively parallel reporter assay in embryonic stem cells, neural progenitor cells, and bone osteoblasts to investigate the regulatory effects of the 14,042 single-nucleotide modern human-specific variants. Overall, 1791 (13%) of sequences containing these variants showed active regulatory activity, and 407 (23%) of these drove differential expression between human groups. Differentially active sequences were associated with divergent transcription factor binding motifs, and with genes enriched for vocal tract and brain anatomy and function. This work provides insight into the regulatory function of variants that emerged along the modern human lineage and the recent evolution of human gene expression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carly V Weiss
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, StanfordStanfordUnited States
| | - Lana Harshman
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San FranciscoSan FranciscoUnited States
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California San Francisco, San FranciscoSan FranciscoUnited States
| | - Fumitaka Inoue
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San FranciscoSan FranciscoUnited States
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California San Francisco, San FranciscoSan FranciscoUnited States
| | - Hunter B Fraser
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, StanfordStanfordUnited States
| | - Dmitri A Petrov
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, StanfordStanfordUnited States
| | - Nadav Ahituv
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San FranciscoSan FranciscoUnited States
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California San Francisco, San FranciscoSan FranciscoUnited States
| | - David Gokhman
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, StanfordStanfordUnited States
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27
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Viñas R, Azevedo T, Gamazon ER, Liò P. Deep Learning Enables Fast and Accurate Imputation of Gene Expression. Front Genet 2021; 12:624128. [PMID: 33927746 PMCID: PMC8076954 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.624128] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2020] [Accepted: 03/12/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
A question of fundamental biological significance is to what extent the expression of a subset of genes can be used to recover the full transcriptome, with important implications for biological discovery and clinical application. To address this challenge, we propose two novel deep learning methods, PMI and GAIN-GTEx, for gene expression imputation. In order to increase the applicability of our approach, we leverage data from GTEx v8, a reference resource that has generated a comprehensive collection of transcriptomes from a diverse set of human tissues. We show that our approaches compare favorably to several standard and state-of-the-art imputation methods in terms of predictive performance and runtime in two case studies and two imputation scenarios. In comparison conducted on the protein-coding genes, PMI attains the highest performance in inductive imputation whereas GAIN-GTEx outperforms the other methods in in-place imputation. Furthermore, our results indicate strong generalization on RNA-Seq data from 3 cancer types across varying levels of missingness. Our work can facilitate a cost-effective integration of large-scale RNA biorepositories into genomic studies of disease, with high applicability across diverse tissue types.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ramon Viñas
- Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Tiago Azevedo
- Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Eric R Gamazon
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and Data Science Institute, VUMC, Nashville, TN, United States.,MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.,Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Pietro Liò
- Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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28
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Viñas R, Andrés-Terré H, Liò P, Bryson K. Adversarial generation of gene expression data. Bioinformatics 2021; 38:730-737. [PMID: 33471074 PMCID: PMC8756177 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2020] [Revised: 01/12/2021] [Accepted: 01/20/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation High-throughput gene expression can be used to address a wide range of fundamental biological problems, but datasets of an appropriate size are often unavailable. Moreover, existing transcriptomics simulators have been criticized because they fail to emulate key properties of gene expression data. In this article, we develop a method based on a conditional generative adversarial network to generate realistic transcriptomics data for Escherichia coli and humans. We assess the performance of our approach across several tissues and cancer-types. Results We show that our model preserves several gene expression properties significantly better than widely used simulators, such as SynTReN or GeneNetWeaver. The synthetic data preserve tissue- and cancer-specific properties of transcriptomics data. Moreover, it exhibits real gene clusters and ontologies both at local and global scales, suggesting that the model learns to approximate the gene expression manifold in a biologically meaningful way. Availability and implementation Code is available at: https://github.com/rvinas/adversarial-gene-expression. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ramon Viñas
- Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, UK.,Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK
| | | | - Pietro Liò
- Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, UK
| | - Kevin Bryson
- Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK
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29
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Rinker DC, Simonti CN, McArthur E, Shaw D, Hodges E, Capra JA. Neanderthal introgression reintroduced functional ancestral alleles lost in Eurasian populations. Nat Ecol Evol 2020; 4:1332-1341. [PMID: 32719451 PMCID: PMC7529911 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-020-1261-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2019] [Accepted: 06/29/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Neanderthal ancestry remains across modern Eurasian genomes and introgressed sequences influence diverse phenotypes. Here, we demonstrate that introgressed sequences reintroduced thousands of ancestral alleles that were lost in Eurasian populations before introgression. Our simulations and variant effect predictions argue that these reintroduced alleles (RAs) are more likely to be tolerated by modern humans than are introgressed Neanderthal-derived alleles (NDAs) due to their distinct evolutionary histories. Consistent with this, we show enrichment for RAs and depletion for NDAs on introgressed haplotypes with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) and phenotype associations. Analysis of available cross-population eQTLs and massively parallel reporter assay data show that RAs commonly influence gene expression independent of linked NDAs. We further validate these independent effects for one RA in vitro. Finally, we demonstrate that NDAs are depleted for regulatory activity compared to RAs, while RAs have activity levels similar to non-introgressed variants. In summary, our study reveals that Neanderthal introgression reintroduced thousands of lost ancestral variants with gene regulatory activity and that these RAs were more tolerated than NDAs. Thus, RAs and their distinct evolutionary histories must be considered when evaluating the effects of introgression.
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Affiliation(s)
- David C Rinker
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Corinne N Simonti
- Department of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Evonne McArthur
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Douglas Shaw
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Emily Hodges
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - John A Capra
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
- Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
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30
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Wagner JK, Colwell C, Claw KG, Stone AC, Bolnick DA, Hawks J, Brothers KB, Garrison NA. Fostering Responsible Research on Ancient DNA. Am J Hum Genet 2020; 107:183-195. [PMID: 32763189 PMCID: PMC7413888 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.06.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Anticipating and addressing the social implications of scientific work is a fundamental responsibility of all scientists. However, expectations for ethically sound practices can evolve over time as the implications of science come to be better understood. Contemporary researchers who work with ancient human remains, including those who conduct ancient DNA research, face precisely this challenge as it becomes clear that practices such as community engagement are needed to address the important social implications of this work. To foster and promote ethical engagement between researchers and communities, we offer five practical recommendations for ancient DNA researchers: (1) formally consult with communities; (2) address cultural and ethical considerations; (3) engage communities and support capacity building; (4) develop plans to report results and manage data; and (5) develop plans for long-term responsibility and stewardship. Ultimately, every member of a research team has an important role in fostering ethical research on ancient DNA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer K Wagner
- Professional Practice and Social Implications Committee (formerly the Social Issues Committee), American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Center for Translational Bioethics and Health Care Policy, Geisinger, Danville, PA 17822, USA.
| | - Chip Colwell
- Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Department of Anthropology, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver, CO 80205, USA
| | - Katrina G Claw
- Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Division of Biomedical Informatics and Personalized Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA
| | - Anne C Stone
- Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
| | - Deborah A Bolnick
- Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA; Institute for Systems Genomics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
| | - John Hawks
- Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
| | - Kyle B Brothers
- Professional Practice and Social Implications Committee (formerly the Social Issues Committee), American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Department of Pediatrics, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40202, USA
| | - Nanibaa' A Garrison
- Professional Practice and Social Implications Committee (formerly the Social Issues Committee), American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Responsible Ancient DNA Research Working Group, American Society of Human Genetics, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; Institute for Society and Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Institute for Precision Health, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
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31
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Mathov Y, Batyrev D, Meshorer E, Carmel L. Harnessing epigenetics to study human evolution. Curr Opin Genet Dev 2020; 62:23-29. [PMID: 32574964 DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.05.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2020] [Revised: 05/18/2020] [Accepted: 05/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Recent advances in ancient DNA extraction and high-throughput sequencing technologies enabled the high-quality sequencing of archaic genomes, including the Neanderthal and the Denisovan. While comparisons with modern humans revealed both archaic-specific and human-specific sequence changes, in the absence of gene expression information, understanding the functional implications of such genetic variations remains a major challenge. To study gene regulation in archaic humans, epigenetic research comes to our aid. DNA methylation, which is highly correlated with transcription, can be directly measured in modern samples, as well as reconstructed in ancient samples. This puts DNA methylation as a natural basis for comparative epigenetics between modern humans, archaic humans and nonhuman primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yoav Mathov
- Department of Genetics, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 9190400, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 9190400, Israel
| | - Daniel Batyrev
- Department of Genetics, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 9190400, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 9190400, Israel
| | - Eran Meshorer
- Department of Genetics, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 9190400, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 9190400, Israel.
| | - Liran Carmel
- Department of Genetics, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 9190400, Israel.
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32
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Yan SM, McCoy RC. Archaic hominin genomics provides a window into gene expression evolution. Curr Opin Genet Dev 2020; 62:44-49. [PMID: 32615344 PMCID: PMC7483639 DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.05.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2020] [Revised: 05/06/2020] [Accepted: 05/08/2020] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Differences in gene expression are thought to account for most phenotypic differences within and between species. Consequently, gene expression is a powerful lens through which to study divergence between modern humans and our closest evolutionary relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Such insights complement biological knowledge gleaned from the fossil record, while also revealing general features of the mode and tempo of regulatory evolution. Because of the degradation of ancient RNA, gene expression profiles of archaic hominins must be studied by indirect means. As such, conclusions drawn from these studies are often laden with assumptions about the genetic architecture of gene expression, the complexity of which is increasingly apparent. Despite these challenges, rapid technical and conceptual advances in the fields of ancient genomics, functional genomics, statistical genomics, and genome engineering are revolutionizing understanding of hominin gene expression evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephanie M Yan
- Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA
| | - Rajiv C McCoy
- Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.
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