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SUMMARY:The evolution and regulation of gene expression levels in mammals 
 - John Marioni (EBI)
DTSTART:20101115T160000Z
DTEND:20101115T170000Z
UID:TALK24786@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Florian Markowetz
DESCRIPTION:Changes in gene regulation have been proposed as critical in t
 he evolution of phenotypic diversity of mammals\, especially primates. How
 ever\, the lack of high-quality reference genomes for most species and the
  limited number of independently derived transcripts for non-human primate
 s has made it difficult to study gene regulation across multiple primates.
  To overcome these problems\, I will describe how we used massively-parall
 el sequencing to interrogate mRNA samples extracted from the livers of 16 
 species (12 primates including human\, and 4 non-primate out groups\; 4 sa
 mples per species). Of the 12 primate species\, 8 do not have currently av
 ailable reference genome sequences\, which means that we had to assemble t
 heir transcriptomes de novo. This study design results in the generation o
 f nucleotide sequence\, quantitative expression\, and gene structure data 
 from thousands of genes\, enabling insights into gene regulation and seque
 nce evolution across a broad spectrum of primate species. I will discuss h
 ow our analysis reveals sets of genes whose expression levels are consiste
 nt with the action of natural selection along individual or ancestral prim
 ate lineages. Further\, I will give examples of specific genes whose funct
 ion and expression pattern we hypothesize may underlie particular adaptive
  processes. \n\nUnderstanding the sets of genes that are differentially ex
 pressed between species and associating these changes with known phenotypi
 c information is important. However\, it is also vital to understand the m
 echanisms by which gene expression levels are regulated. To address this\,
  in the second part of my presentation\, I will describe initial results f
 rom a study where we have assayed gene expression levels in F0 and F1-cros
 ses of three closely-related mouse strains (BL6\, AJ\, and CAST) using RNA
 -sequencing. Our analysis (using a Bayesian statistical framework) enables
  a comparison of gene expression levels in the F1 crosses to the correspon
 ding parental expression levels\, allowing the identification of genes who
 se expression levels are consistent with: \n#	Imprinting\n#	A pattern of c
 is regulation \n#	A pattern of trans regulation\n\nFinally\, I will descri
 be how we can use this classification to obtain insights into the regulati
 on of gene expression levels.\n\n
LOCATION:Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute\, Lecture Theatre
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