Abundant genetic variation in transcript level during early Drosophila development.
Abundant genetic variation in transcript level during early Drosophila development.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/j.1525-142x.2008.00281.x
复制
发表时间：
2008-11
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Hahn MW
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nuzhdin SV;Tufts DM;Hahn MW
基因表达的变异可能是许多重要进化特征的基础。然而，目前尚不清楚在有机体发育的哪个阶段，基因表达的变化最有可能导致表型的变化。人们普遍认为，早期发育的变化更有可能导致下游表型的变化。为了发现自然种群中转录水平的遗传变异有多大，我们研究了9个黑腹果蝇自交系在发育的两个时间点上的合子基因表达。我们发现转录水平在不同品系之间和时间上都存在丰富的差异：近一半的表达基因在任何一个时间点上都表现出显著的品系效应。我们在两个已被充分研究的基因调控网络中研究了母体负载基因对这种变异的贡献，以及上游基因变异对其下游目标变异的贡献。最后，我们估计了这两个网络中基因表达的维度，并发现——尽管有大量不同的基因——似乎只有两个因素控制着这种变异。
Variation in gene expression may underlie many important evolutionary traits. However, it is not known at what stage in organismal development changes in gene expression are most likely to result in changes in phenotype. One widely held belief is that changes in early development are more likely to results in changes in downstream phenotypes. In order to discover how much genetic variation for transcript level is present in natural populations, we studied zygotic gene expression in nine inbred lines of Drosophila melanogaster at two time points in development. We find abundant variation for transcript level both between lines and over time: close to half of all expressed genes show a significant line effect at either time point. We examine the contribution of maternally-loaded genes to this variation, as well as the contribution of variation in upstream genes to variation in their downstream targets in two well-studied gene regulatory networks. Finally, we estimate the dimensionality of gene expression in these two networks and find that—despite large numbers of varying genes—there only appear to be two factors controlling this variation.