Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Sara B. Linker, Inigo Narvaiza, Jonathan Y. Hsu, Meiyan Wang, Fan Qiu, Ana P. D. Mendes, Ruth Oefner, Kalyani Kottilil, Amandeep Sharma, Lynne Randolph-Moore, Eunice Mejia, Renata Santos, Maria C. Marchetto, Fred H. Gage
Summary: Human neurodevelopment is slower than that in other nonhuman primates, a phenomenon referred to as neoteny. The transcription factor GATA3 plays a unique role in human neuronal maturation, and downregulation of GATA3 accelerates the speed of developing action potentials, modulating the human neotenic phenotype.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Sarah Janati-Idrissi, Mariana Roza de Abreu, Cervin Guyomar, Fernanda de Mello, Thaovi Nguyen, Nazim Mechkouri, Stephanie Gay, Jerome Montfort, Anne Alicia Gonzalez, Marzieh Abbasi, Jerome Bugeon, Violette Thermes, Herve Seitz, Julien Bobe
Summary: This study provides a proof of concept for the successful identification of miRNA phenotypic targets from RNA-seq data. The researchers identified tead3b as a target of miR-202-5p, which is involved in ovarian function and egg production. This study highlights the importance of understanding miRNA functions and their targets in order to better understand biological processes.
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yirong Shi, Yiwei Niu, Peng Zhang, Huaxia Luo, Shuai Liu, Sijia Zhang, Jiajia Wang, Yanyan Li, Xinyue Liu, Tingrui Song, Tao Xu, Shunmin He
Summary: This study presents a comprehensive map of 366,013 polymorphic short tandem repeats (pSTRs) in the human genome, based on deeply sequenced genomes. The study explores the associations between STR mutations and various genomic features, such as gene expression and alternative polyadenylation. It also investigates population differentiation and genotypes disease-causing STRs.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Duo Xie, Guangji Chen, Xiaoyu Meng, Haotian Wang, Xupeng Bi, Miaoquan Fang, Chentao Yang, Yang Zhou, Erping Long, Shaohong Feng
Summary: Studying genes under positive selection in great apes can provide insights into human evolutionary history and aid in non-human primate model research. The majority of multigene families in great apes exhibit signals of positive selection, leading to functional divergence of duplicates.
Article
Cell Biology
Amanda L. Muehlbauer, Allison L. Richards, Adnan Alazizi, Michael B. Burns, Andres Gomez, Jonathan B. Clayton, Klara Petrzelkova, Camilla Cascardo, Justyna Resztak, Xiaoquan Wen, Roger Pique-Regi, Francesca Luca, Ran Blekhman
Summary: The study found that most host genes exhibit a conserved response to microbial communities from different hominid species, but hundreds of genes show a divergent response specific to certain host species. Genes associated with intestinal diseases in humans, such as inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease, were affected by species-specific host-microbiome interactions. Inflammation-associated microbial species were found to regulate the expression of host genes related to inflammatory bowel disease, suggesting potential health consequences for these interactions across hominids.
Article
Ecology
Meng-Sha Mao, Yi-Nan He, Xiang-Dong Liu
Summary: Wing dimorphism in brown planthoppers is determined by insulin receptors, and selection affects wing morphs and fecundity. Expression levels of wing development genes are correlated with wing morphs. Partial assortative mating promotes genetic exchange between wing morphs.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Justin L. Conover, Jonathan F. Wendel
Summary: This study shows that deleterious mutations accumulate faster in allopolyploids compared to diploids. The difference is more significant for strongly deleterious mutations and diminishes for moderately and mildly deleterious mutations. Additionally, there is unequal homoeologous masking between subgenomes in the allopolyploids.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Review
Genetics & Heredity
Daniel E. Shaw, Michael A. White
Summary: Regulatory evolution on sex chromosomes plays a key role in the evolution of sex chromosomes and the expression of gametologs. Recent findings indicate that downregulation of ancestral alleles is widespread on Y chromosomes.
TRENDS IN GENETICS
(2022)
Article
Physics, Fluids & Plasmas
Clecio C. de Souza Silva, Diego Cirne, Osmar Freitas, Paulo R. A. Campos
Summary: In this study, phenotypic evolution is investigated using the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process. The model assumes stabilizing selection towards a phenotypic optimum. The standard (OU) model is modified to include environmental variation and phenotypic plasticity, leading to skewed phenotypic distributions. The magnitude and direction of environmental variation have significant effects on the phenotypic distributions.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Sean T. Bresnahan, David Galbraith, Rong Ma, Kate Anton, Juliana Rangel, Christina M. Grozinger
Summary: Behavioural variation is essential for animals to adapt to different social and environmental conditions. This study examines the Kinship Theory of Intragenomic Conflict (KTIC) and its predictions regarding the influence of parent-specific alleles on social behaviors and gene expression in honey bees. The results provide evidence for parent-of-origin effects on bee behaviors and gene expression patterns, supporting the KTIC hypothesis.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Lorena Derezanin, Asta Blazyte, Pavel Dobrynin, David A. Duchene, Jose Horacio Grau, Sungwon Jeon, Sergei Kliver, Klaus-Peter Koepfli, Dorina Meneghini, Michaela Preick, Andrey Tomarovsky, Azamat Totikov, Joerns Fickel, Daniel W. Forster
Summary: Species of the mustelid subfamily Guloninae have diverse adaptations in feeding ecologies, reproductive strategies, and morphology. By comparing the genomes of different species, we identified multiple candidate loci associated with traits such as diet, body condition, and reproduction. Our study highlights the importance of considering various types of genomic variations in the identification of adaptive loci.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Olga Rosspopoff, Emmanuel Cazottes, Christophe Huret, Agnese Loda, Amanda J. Collier, Miguel Casanova, Peter J. Rugg-Gunn, Edith Heard, Jean-Francois Ouimette, Claire Rougeulle
Summary: XCI is a crucial process with remarkable diversity among mammalian species. Through analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data and functional assays, we find that FTX shows functional inconsistency in humans, while JPX acts as a major regulator of XIST expression in both species. However, we reveal that different forms of JPX control the production of XIST at different steps depending on the species. Overall, this study highlights the functional versatility of LRGs and suggests diversified mechanisms of action for functionally conserved orthologous LRGs.
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Alexander C. Cope, Premal Shah
Summary: The research reveals the impact of intragenomic variation in non-adaptive nucleotide bias on natural selection of synonymous codon usage. Unsupervised learning methods can identify genes evolving under different non-adaptive nucleotide biases, which is crucial for understanding codon usage biases.
Article
Plant Sciences
Leonie C. Moyle, Meng Wu, Matthew J. S. Gibson
Summary: Elevated rates of evolution in reproductive proteins, particularly in female-specific loci, are observed in wild tomato species, potentially due to greater tissue specificity of reproductive proteins. Additionally, little evidence was found for consistent differences in evolutionary rates in loci experiencing haploid selection or in lineages with quantitatively different mating systems.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Madeleine Carruthers, Duncan E. Edgley, Andrew D. Saxon, Nestory P. Gabagambi, Asilatu Shechonge, Eric A. Miska, Richard Durbin, Jon R. Bridle, George F. Turner, Martin J. Genner
Summary: In an African crater lake, the cichlid Astatotilapia calliptera has diverged into shallow-littoral and deep-benthic ecomorphs within the last 1,000 years. Through analysis of transcriptome data, this study reveals that regulatory variants play a crucial role in driving ecologically relevant divergence in gene expression during adaptive diversification.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)