Transcriptional neoteny in the human brain.
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.
Somel
Mehmet
M
Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
Franz
Henriette
H
Yan
Zheng
Z
Lorenc
Anna
A
Guo
Song
S
Giger
Thomas
T
Kelso
Janet
J
Nickel
Birgit
B
Dannemann
Michael
M
Bahn
Sabine
S
Webster
Maree J
MJ
Weickert
Cynthia S
CS
Lachmann
Michael
M
Pääbo
Svante
S
Khaitovich
Philipp
P
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
D012333:RNA, Messenger