Unequal allele expression (asymmetric allele-specific expression)

Abstract Background: Altered germline expression of genes may represent a powerful marker of genetic or epigenetic predisposition to cancer or other diseases. Methods: We developed and validated a method of nonfluorescent primer extension that uses a single dideoxynucleotide and denaturing HPLC (DHPLC) to analyze the relative allele expression. We devised 5 independent assays for measuring allele-specific expression (ASE) to exploit different markers of mismatch repair genes MLH1 [mutL homolog 1, colon cancer, nonpolyposis type 2 (E. coli)] and MSH2 [mutS homolog 2, colon cancer, nonpolyposis type 1 (E. coli)]. We initially confirmed method reproducibility with genomic DNA (gDNA) from individuals heterozygous for a frequent single-nucleotide polymorphism in the MLH1 gene. After this preliminary validation with gDNA, we confirmed assay reproducibility with cDNA templates from control individuals. Relative allele expression was estimated by comparing the heights of the peaks corresponding to the 2 alleles. Results obtained with gDNA templates were used to normalize cDNA results. Results: With these DHPLC-based primer-extension assays, we detected and confirmed a 5-fold imbalance in MLH1 allele expression in a mutation-negative patient with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer and in another patient with a modest degree of imbalance in MLH1 expression. Among control individuals, the relative expression of MLH1 alleles displayed a narrow range of variation. Conclusions: Independent DHPLC-based primer-extension assays for measuring and confirming ASE can be developed for different sequence variants of interest. This DHPLC application provides a cost-effective method for detecting ASE in cases for which conventional screening fails to detect pathogenic mutations in candidate genes and may be applicable for confirming ASE revealed by other methods, such as those used for transcriptome-wide analyses. .

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Investigation of allele specific expression in various tissues of broiler chickens using the detection tool VADT

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-83459-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

M. Joseph Tomlinson ◽

Shawn W. Polson ◽

Jing Qiu ◽

Juniper A. Lake ◽

William Lee ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Broiler Chickens ◽

Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽

Rna Seq ◽

Specific Expression ◽

Single Nucleotide ◽

Allele Specific Expression ◽

Detection Tool ◽

Commercial Broiler ◽

Significant Phenomenon ◽

Allele Specific

AbstractDifferential abundance of allelic transcripts in a diploid organism, commonly referred to as allele specific expression (ASE), is a biologically significant phenomenon and can be examined using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from RNA-seq. Quantifying ASE aids in our ability to identify and understand cis-regulatory mechanisms that influence gene expression, and thereby assist in identifying causal mutations. This study examines ASE in breast muscle, abdominal fat, and liver of commercial broiler chickens using variants called from a large sub-set of the samples (n = 68). ASE analysis was performed using a custom software called VCF ASE Detection Tool (VADT), which detects ASE of biallelic SNPs using a binomial test. On average ~ 174,000 SNPs in each tissue passed our filtering criteria and were considered informative, of which ~ 24,000 (~ 14%) showed ASE. Of all ASE SNPs, only 3.7% exhibited ASE in all three tissues, with ~ 83% showing ASE specific to a single tissue. When ASE genes (genes containing ASE SNPs) were compared between tissues, the overlap among all three tissues increased to 20.1%. Our results indicate that ASE genes show tissue-specific enrichment patterns, but all three tissues showed enrichment for pathways involved in translation.

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