title: The evolutionary panorama of organ-specifically expressed or repressed orthologous genes in nine vertebrate species.
abstract: RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) technology provides the detailed transcriptomic information for a biological sample. Using the RNA-Seq data of six organs from nine vertebrate species, we identified a number of organ-specifically expressed or repressed orthologous genes whose expression patterns are mostly conserved across nine species. Our analyses show the following results: (i) About 80% of these genes have a chordate or more ancient origin and more than half of them are the legacy of one or multiple rounds of large-scale gene duplication events. (ii) Their evolutionary rates are shaped by the organ in which they are expressed or repressed, e.g. the genes specially expressed in testis and liver generally evolve more than twice as fast as the ones specially expressed in brain and cerebellum. The organ-specific transcription factors were discriminated from these genes. The ChIP-seq data from the ENCODE project also revealed the transcription-related factors that might be involved in regulating human organ-specifically expressed or repressed genes. Some of them are shared by all six human organs. The comparison of ENCODE data with mouse/chicken ChIP-seq data proposes that organ-specifically expressed or repressed orthologous genes are regulated in various combinatorial fashions in different species, although their expression features are conserved among these species. We found that the duplication events in some gene families might help explain the quick organ/tissue divergence in vertebrate lineage. The phylogenetic analysis of testis-specifically expressed genes suggests that some of them are prone to develop new functions for other organs/tissues.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China.
authors: Libing
authors: L
authors: Shen
authors: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China.
authors: Gangbiao
authors: G
authors: Liu
authors: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China.
authors: Yangyun
authors: Y
authors: Zou
authors: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China.
authors: Zhan
authors: Z
authors: Zhou
authors: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China.
authors: Zhixi
authors: Z
authors: Su
authors: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China; Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America.
authors: Xun
authors: X
authors: Gu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D020868:Gene Silencing; D006801:Humans; D005810:Multigene Family / Q000235:genetics; D009928:Organ Specificity; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014158:Transcription, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000235:genetics*