title: Changes in snoRNA and snRNA Abundance in the Human, Chimpanzee, Macaque, and Mouse Brain.
abstract: Small nuclear and nucleolar RNAs (snRNAs and snoRNAs) are known to be functionally and evolutionarily conserved elements of transcript processing machinery. Here, we investigated the expression evolution of snRNAs and snoRNAs by measuring their abundance in the frontal cortex of humans, chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, and mice. Although snRNA expression is largely conserved, 44% of the 185 measured snoRNA and 40% of the 134 snoRNA families showed significant expression divergence among species. The snRNA and snoRNA expression divergence included drastic changes unique to humans: A 10-fold elevated expression ofU1snRNA and a 1,000-fold drop in expression ofSNORA29 The decreased expression ofSNORA29might be due to two mutations that affect secondary structure stability. Using in situ hybridization, we further localizedSNORA29expression to nucleolar regions of neuronal cells. Our study presents the first observation of snoRNA abundance changes specific to the human lineage and suggests a possible mechanism underlying these changes.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai, China Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Dingding
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Yuriy
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Korostelev
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai, China Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Ningyi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Skolkovo Institute for Science and Technology, Skolkovo, Russia.
authors.forename: Ekaterina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Khrameeva
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute", Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Boris M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Velichkovsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
authors.forename: Yi-Ping Phoebe
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Institute for Information Transmission Problems, RAS, Moscow, Russia mikhail.gelfand@gmail.com khaitovich@eva.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Mikhail S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Gelfand
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai, China Skolkovo Institute for Science and Technology, Skolkovo, Russia Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China mikhail.gelfand@gmail.com khaitovich@eva.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Khaitovich
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D008251:Macaca / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D009154:Mutation; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary / Q000235:genetics; D020537:RNA, Small Nucleolar / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D020537:RNA, Small Nucleolar
keywords: brain; evolution; human; snRNA; snoRNA