Angela Goncalves

A global map of human gene expression

To the Editor Although there is only one human genome sequence, different genes are expressed in many different cell types and tissues, as well as in different developmental stages or diseases. The structure of this ‘expression space’ is still largely unknown, as most transcriptomics experiments focus on sampling small regions. We have constructed a global gene expression map by integrating microarray data from 5,372 human samples representing 369 different cell and tissue types, disease states and cell lines. These have been compiled in an online resource (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/gxa/array/U133A) that allows the user to search for a gene of interest and find the conditions in which it is over- or underexpressed, or, conversely, to find which genes are over- or underexpressed in a particular condition. An analysis of the structure of the expression space reveals that it can be described by a small number of distinct expression profile classes and that the first three principal components of this space have biological interpretations. The hematopoietic system, solid tissues and incompletely differentiated cell types are arranged on the first principal axis; cell lines, neoplastic samples and nonneoplastic primary tissue–derived samples are on the second principal axis; and nervous system is separated from the rest of the samples on the third axis. We also show below that most cell lines cluster together rather than with their tissues of origin.

Rapid turnover of long noncoding RNAs and the evolution of gene expression.

A large proportion of functional sequence within mammalian genomes falls outside protein-coding exons and can be transcribed into long RNAs. However, the roles in mammalian biology of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) are not well understood. Few lncRNAs have experimentally determined roles, with some of these being lineage-specific. Determining the extent by which transcription of lncRNA loci is retained or lost across multiple evolutionary lineages is essential if we are to understand their contribution to mammalian biology and to lineage-specific traits. Here, we experimentally investigated the conservation of lncRNA expression among closely related rodent species, allowing the evolution of DNA sequence to be uncoupled from evolution of transcript expression. We generated total RNA (RNAseq) and H3K4me3-bound (ChIPseq) DNA data, and combined both to construct catalogues of transcripts expressed in the adult liver of Mus musculus domesticus (C57BL/6J), Mus musculus castaneus, and Rattus norvegicus. We estimated the rate of transcriptional turnover of lncRNAs and investigated the effects of their lineage-specific birth or death. LncRNA transcription showed considerably greater gain and loss during rodent evolution, compared with protein-coding genes. Nucleotide substitution rates were found to mirror the in vivo transcriptional conservation of intergenic lncRNAs between rodents: only the sequences of noncoding loci with conserved transcription were constrained. Finally, we found that lineage-specific intergenic lncRNAs appear to be associated with modestly elevated expression of genomically neighbouring protein-coding genes. Our findings show that nearly half of intergenic lncRNA loci have been gained or lost since the last common ancestor of mouse and rat, and they predict that such rapid transcriptional turnover contributes to the evolution of tissue- and lineage-specific gene expression.

Extensive compensatory cis-trans regulation in the evolution of mouse gene expression

Gene expression levels are thought to diverge primarily via regulatory mutations in trans within species, and in cis between species. To test this hypothesis in mammals we used RNA-sequencing to measure gene expression divergence between C57BL/6J and CAST/EiJ mouse strains and allele-specific expression in their F1 progeny. We identified 535 genes with parent-of-origin specific expression patterns, although few of these showed full allelic silencing. This suggests that the number of imprinted genes in a typical mouse somatic tissue is relatively small. In the set of nonimprinted genes, 32% showed evidence of divergent expression between the two strains. Of these, 2% could be attributed purely to variants acting in trans, while 43% were attributable only to variants acting in cis. The genes with expression divergence driven by changes in trans showed significantly higher sequence constraint than genes where the divergence was explained by variants acting in cis. The remaining genes with divergent patterns of expression (55%) were regulated by a combination of variants acting in cis and variants acting in trans. Intriguingly, the changes in expression induced by the cis and trans variants were in opposite directions more frequently than expected by chance, implying that compensatory regulation to stabilize gene expression levels is widespread. We propose that expression levels of genes regulated by this mechanism are fine-tuned by cis variants that arise following regulatory changes in trans, suggesting that many cis variants are not the primary targets of natural selection.

Common genetic variation drives molecular heterogeneity in human iPSCs

Technology utilizing human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) has enormous potential to provide improved cellular models of human disease. However, variable genetic and phenotypic characterization of many existing iPS cell lines limits their potential use for research and therapy. Here we describe the systematic generation, genotyping and phenotyping of 711 iPS cell lines derived from 301 healthy individuals by the Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Initiative. Our study outlines the major sources of genetic and phenotypic variation in iPS cells and establishes their suitability as models of complex human traits and cancer. Through genome-wide profiling we find that 5–46% of the variation in different iPS cell phenotypes, including differentiation capacity and cellular morphology, arises from differences between individuals. Additionally, we assess the phenotypic consequences of genomic copy-number alterations that are repeatedly observed in iPS cells. In addition, we present a comprehensive map of common regulatory variants affecting the transcriptome of human pluripotent cells.

Pol III binding in six mammals shows conservation among amino acid isotypes despite divergence among tRNA genes.

RNA polymerase III (Pol III) transcription of tRNA genes is essential for generating the tRNA adaptor molecules that link genetic sequence and protein translation. By mapping Pol III occupancy genome-wide in mouse, rat, human, macaque, dog and opossum livers, we found that Pol III binding to individual tRNA genes varies substantially in strength and location. However, when we took into account tRNA redundancies by grouping Pol III occupancy into 46 anticodon isoacceptor families or 21 amino acid–based isotype classes, we discovered strong conservation. Similarly, Pol III occupancy of amino acid isotypes is almost invariant among transcriptionally and evolutionarily diverse tissues in mouse. Thus, synthesis of functional tRNA isotypes has been highly constrained, although the usage of individual tRNA genes has evolved rapidly.

A pipeline for RNA-seq data processing and quality assessment

Summary: We present an R based pipeline, ArrayExpressHTS, for pre-processing, expression estimation and data quality assessment of high-throughput sequencing transcriptional profiling (RNA-seq) datasets. The pipeline starts from raw sequence files and produces standard Bioconductor R objects containing gene or transcript measurements for downstream analysis along with web reports for data quality assessment. It may be run locally on a users own computer or remotely on a distributed R-cloud farm at the European Bioinformatics Institute. It can be used to analyse users own datasets or public RNA-seq datasets from the ArrayExpress Archive. Availability: The R package is available at www.ebi.ac.uk/tools/rcloud with online documentation at www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/rwiki/, also available as supplementary material. Contact: angela.goncalves@ebi.ac.uk Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Multi-species, multi-transcription factor binding highlights conserved control of tissue-specific biological pathways

As exome sequencing gives way to genome sequencing, the need to interpret the function of regulatory DNA becomes increasingly important. To test whether evolutionary conservation of cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) gives insight into human gene regulation, we determined transcription factor (TF) binding locations of four liver-essential TFs in liver tissue from human, macaque, mouse, rat, and dog. Approximately, two thirds of the TF-bound regions fell into CRMs. Less than half of the human CRMs were found as a CRM in the orthologous region of a second species. Shared CRMs were associated with liver pathways and disease loci identified by genome-wide association studies. Recurrent rare human disease causing mutations at the promoters of several blood coagulation and lipid metabolism genes were also identified within CRMs shared in multiple species. This suggests that multi-species analyses of experimentally determined combinatorial TF binding will help identify genomic regions critical for tissue-specific gene control. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02626.001

Pol III binding in six mammalian genomes shows high conservation among amino acid isotypes, despite divergence in tRNA gene usage

RNA polymerase III (Pol III) transcription of tRNA genes is essential for generating the tRNA adaptor molecules that link genetic sequence and protein translation. By mapping Pol III occupancy genome-wide in mouse, rat, human, macaque, dog and opossum livers, we found that Pol III binding to individual tRNA genes varies substantially in strength and location. However, when we took into account tRNA redundancies by grouping Pol III occupancy into 46 anticodon isoacceptor families or 21 amino acid–based isotype classes, we discovered strong conservation. Similarly, Pol III occupancy of amino acid isotypes is almost invariant among transcriptionally and evolutionarily diverse tissues in mouse. Thus, synthesis of functional tRNA isotypes has been highly constrained, although the usage of individual tRNA genes has evolved rapidly.

Fgf and Esrrb integrate epigenetic and transcriptional networks that regulate self-renewal of trophoblast stem cells.

Esrrb (oestrogen-related receptor beta) is a transcription factor implicated in embryonic stem (ES) cell self-renewal, yet its knockout causes intrauterine lethality due to defects in trophoblast development. Here we show that in trophoblast stem (TS) cells, Esrrb is a downstream target of fibroblast growth factor (Fgf) signalling and is critical to drive TS cell self-renewal. In contrast to its occupancy of pluripotency-associated loci in ES cells, Esrrb sustains the stemness of TS cells by direct binding and regulation of TS cell-specific transcription factors including Elf5 and Eomes. To elucidate the mechanisms whereby Esrrb controls the expression of its targets, we characterized its TS cell-specific interactome using mass spectrometry. Unlike in ES cells, Esrrb interacts in TS cells with the histone demethylase Lsd1 and with the RNA Polymerase II-associated Integrator complex. Our findings provide new insights into both the general and context-dependent wiring of transcription factor networks in stem cells by master transcription factors.

Molecular and functional variation in iPSC-derived sensory neurons

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and cells derived from them, have become key tools for modeling biological processes, particularly in cell types that are difficult to obtain from living donors. Here we present a map of regulatory variants in iPSC-derived neurons, based on 123 differentiations of iPSCs to a sensory neuronal fate. Gene expression was more variable across cultures than in primary dorsal root ganglion, particularly for genes related to nervous system development. Using single-cell RNA-sequencing, we found that the number of neuronal versus contaminating cells was influenced by iPSC culture conditions before differentiation. Despite high differentiation-induced variability, our allele-specific method detected thousands of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that influenced gene expression, chromatin accessibility, and RNA splicing. On the basis of these detected QTLs, we estimate that recall-by-genotype studies that use iPSC-derived cells will require cells from at least 20–80 individuals to detect the effects of regulatory variants with moderately large effect sizes.This study identifies regulatory variants in sensory neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Despite differentiation-induced variability, an allele-specific method allowed detection of loci influencing gene expression, chromatin accessibility and RNA splicing.