title: Transcriptional neoteny in the human brain.
abstract: In development, timing is of the utmost importance, and the timing of developmental processes often changes as organisms evolve. In human evolution, developmental retardation, or neoteny, has been proposed as a possible mechanism that contributed to the rise of many human-specific features, including an increase in brain size and the emergence of human-specific cognitive traits. We analyzed mRNA expression in the prefrontal cortex of humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques to determine whether human-specific neotenic changes are present at the gene expression level. We show that the brain transcriptome is dramatically remodeled during postnatal development and that developmental changes in the human brain are indeed delayed relative to other primates. This delay is not uniform across the human transcriptome but affects a specific subset of genes that play a potential role in neural development.
authors.affiliation: Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Mehmet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Somel
authors.forename: Henriette
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Franz
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lorenc
authors.forename: Song
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Giger
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kelso
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nickel
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dannemann
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bahn
authors.forename: Maree J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.forename: Cynthia S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Weickert
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lachmann
authors.forename: Svante
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pääbo
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Khaitovich
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D002679:Pan troglodytes; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger