scholarly journals Co-expression signatures of combinatorial gene regulation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Gomez-Cano ◽  
Qian Xu ◽  
Shin-Han Shiu ◽  
Arjun Krishnan ◽  
Erich Grotewold

AbstractGene co-expression analyses provide a powerful tool to determine gene associations. The interaction of transcription factors (TFs) with their target genes is an essential step in gene regulation, yet to what extent TFs-target gene associations are recovered in co-expression studies remains unclear. Using the wealth of data available for Arabidopsis, we show here that protein-DNA interactions are overall poor indicators of TF-target co-expression, yet the inclusion of TF-TF interaction information significantly enhance co-expression signals. These results highlight the impact of combinatorial gene control on such gene association networks. We integrated this information to predict higher-order regulatory complexes, which are difficult to identify experimentally. We demonstrate that genes strongly co-expressed with a TF are also enriched in indirect targets. Our results have significant implications on the empirical understanding of complex gene regulatory networks and transcription factor function, and the significance of co-expression from the perspective of protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions.

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (14) ◽  
pp. 3480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziwen Li ◽  
Xueli An ◽  
Taotao Zhu ◽  
Tingwei Yan ◽  
Suowei Wu ◽  
...  

The “competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) hypothesis” has recently been proposed for a new type of gene regulatory model in many organisms. Anther development is a crucial biological process in plant reproduction, and its gene regulatory network (GRN) has been gradually revealed during the past two decades. However, it is still unknown whether ceRNAs contribute to anther development and sexual reproduction in plants. We performed RNA and small RNA sequencing of anther tissues sampled at three developmental stages in two maize lines. A total of 28,233 stably transcribed loci, 61 known and 51 potentially novel microRNAs (miRNAs) were identified from the transcriptomes. Predicted ceRNAs and target genes were found to conserve in sequences of recognition sites where their corresponding miRNAs bound. We then reconstructed 79 ceRNA-miRNA-target gene regulatory networks consisting of 51 known miRNAs, 28 potentially novel miRNAs, 619 ceRNA-miRNA pairs, and 869 miRNA-target gene pairs. More than half of the regulation pairs showed significant negative correlations at transcriptional levels. Several well-studied miRNA-target gene pairs associated with plant flower development were located in some networks, including miR156-SPL, miR159-MYB, miR160-ARF, miR164-NAC, miR172-AP2, and miR319-TCP pairs. Six target genes in the networks were found to be orthologs of functionally confirmed genes participating in anther development in plants. Our results provide an insight that the ceRNA-miRNA-target gene regulatory networks likely contribute to anther development in maize. Further functional studies on a number of ceRNAs, miRNAs, and target genes will facilitate our deep understanding on mechanisms of anther development and sexual plants reproduction.


2000 ◽  
Vol 20 (16) ◽  
pp. 5797-5807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Wells ◽  
Kathryn E. Boyd ◽  
Christopher J. Fry ◽  
Stephanie M. Bartley ◽  
Peggy J. Farnham

ABSTRACT E2F-mediated transcription is thought to involve binding of an E2F-pocket protein complex to promoters in the G0 phase of the cell cycle and release of the pocket protein in late G1, followed by release of E2F in S phase. We have tested this model by monitoring protein-DNA interactions in living cells using a formaldehyde cross-linking and immunoprecipitation assay. We find that E2F target genes are bound by distinct E2F-pocket protein complexes which change as cells progress through the cell cycle. We also find that certain E2F target gene promoters are bound by pocket proteins when such promoters are transcriptionally active. Our data indicate that the current model applies only to certain E2F target genes and suggest that Rb family members may regulate transcription in both G0 and S phases. Finally, we find that a given promoter can be bound by one of several different E2F-pocket protein complexes at a given time in the cell cycle, suggesting that cell cycle-regulated transcription is a stochastic, not a predetermined, process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neel Patel ◽  
William S. Bush

Abstract Background Transcriptional regulation is complex, requiring multiple cis (local) and trans acting mechanisms working in concert to drive gene expression, with disruption of these processes linked to multiple diseases. Previous computational attempts to understand the influence of regulatory mechanisms on gene expression have used prediction models containing input features derived from cis regulatory factors. However, local chromatin looping and trans-acting mechanisms are known to also influence transcriptional regulation, and their inclusion may improve model accuracy and interpretation. In this study, we create a general model of transcription factor influence on gene expression by incorporating both cis and trans gene regulatory features. Results We describe a computational framework to model gene expression for GM12878 and K562 cell lines. This framework weights the impact of transcription factor-based regulatory data using multi-omics gene regulatory networks to account for both cis and trans acting mechanisms, and measures of the local chromatin context. These prediction models perform significantly better compared to models containing cis-regulatory features alone. Models that additionally integrate long distance chromatin interactions (or chromatin looping) between distal transcription factor binding regions and gene promoters also show improved accuracy. As a demonstration of their utility, effect estimates from these models were used to weight cis-regulatory rare variants for sequence kernel association test analyses of gene expression. Conclusions Our models generate refined effect estimates for the influence of individual transcription factors on gene expression, allowing characterization of their roles across the genome. This work also provides a framework for integrating multiple data types into a single model of transcriptional regulation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (13) ◽  
pp. E1835-E1843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Fazlollahi ◽  
Ivor Muroff ◽  
Eunjee Lee ◽  
Helen C. Causton ◽  
Harmen J. Bussemaker

Regulation of gene expression by transcription factors (TFs) is highly dependent on genetic background and interactions with cofactors. Identifying specific context factors is a major challenge that requires new approaches. Here we show that exploiting natural variation is a potent strategy for probing functional interactions within gene regulatory networks. We developed an algorithm to identify genetic polymorphisms that modulate the regulatory connectivity between specific transcription factors and their target genes in vivo. As a proof of principle, we mapped connectivity quantitative trait loci (cQTLs) using parallel genotype and gene expression data for segregants from a cross between two strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We identified a nonsynonymous mutation in the DIG2 gene as a cQTL for the transcription factor Ste12p and confirmed this prediction empirically. We also identified three polymorphisms in TAF13 as putative modulators of regulation by Gcn4p. Our method has potential for revealing how genetic differences among individuals influence gene regulatory networks in any organism for which gene expression and genotype data are available along with information on binding preferences for transcription factors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (138) ◽  
pp. 20170809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhipeng Wang ◽  
Davit A. Potoyan ◽  
Peter G. Wolynes

Gene regulatory networks must relay information from extracellular signals to downstream genes in an efficient, timely and coherent manner. Many complex functional tasks such as the immune response require system-wide broadcasting of information not to one but to many genes carrying out distinct functions whose dynamical binding and unbinding characteristics are widely distributed. In such broadcasting networks, the intended target sites are also often dwarfed in number by the even more numerous non-functional binding sites. Taking the genetic regulatory network of NF κ B as an exemplary system we explore the impact of having numerous distributed sites on the stochastic dynamics of oscillatory broadcasting genetic networks pointing out how resonances in binding cycles control the network's specificity and performance. We also show that active kinetic regulation of binding and unbinding through molecular stripping of DNA bound transcription factors can lead to a higher coherence of gene-co-expression and synchronous clearance.


Cells ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 2690
Author(s):  
Mónica Fernández-Cortés ◽  
Eduardo Andrés-León ◽  
Francisco Javier Oliver

In highly metastatic tumors, vasculogenic mimicry (VM) involves the acquisition by tumor cells of endothelial-like traits. Poly-(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are currently used against tumors displaying BRCA1/2-dependent deficient homologous recombination, and they may have antimetastatic activity. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as key species-specific regulators of cellular and disease processes. To evaluate the impact of olaparib treatment in the context of non-coding RNA, we have analyzed the expression of lncRNA after performing unbiased whole-transcriptome profiling of human uveal melanoma cells cultured to form VM. RNAseq revealed that the non-coding transcriptomic landscape differed between olaparib-treated and non-treated cells: olaparib significantly modulated the expression of 20 lncRNAs, 11 lncRNAs being upregulated, and 9 downregulated. We subjected the data to different bioinformatics tools and analysis in public databases. We found that copy-number variation alterations in some olaparib-modulated lncRNAs had a statistically significant correlation with alterations in some key tumor suppressor genes. Furthermore, the lncRNAs that were modulated by olaparib appeared to be regulated by common transcription factors: ETS1 had high-score binding sites in the promoters of all olaparib upregulated lncRNAs, while MZF1, RHOXF1 and NR2C2 had high-score binding sites in the promoters of all olaparib downregulated lncRNAs. Finally, we predicted that olaparib-modulated lncRNAs could further regulate several transcription factors and their subsequent target genes in melanoma, suggesting that olaparib may trigger a major shift in gene expression mediated by the regulation lncRNA. Globally, olaparib changed the lncRNA expression landscape during VM affecting angiogenesis-related genes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thaís dos Santos Fontes Pereira ◽  
João Artur Ricieri Brito ◽  
André Luiz Sena Guimarães ◽  
Carolina Cavaliéri Gomes ◽  
Júlio Cesar Tanos de Lacerda ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yogesh Kumar ◽  
Pratibha Tripathi ◽  
Majid Mehravar ◽  
Michael J. Bullen ◽  
Varun K. Pandey ◽  
...  

SUMMARYEpigenetic regulators and transcription factors establish distinct regulatory networks for gene regulation to maintain the embryonic stem cells (ESC) state. Although much has been learned regarding individual epigenetic regulators, their combinatorial functions remain elusive. Here, we report combinatorial functions of histone demethylases (HDMs) in gene regulation of mouse ESCs that are currently unknown. We generated a histone demethylome (HDMome) map of 20 well-characterized HDMs based on their genome-wide binding. This revealed co-occupancy of HDMs in different combinations; predominantly, KDM1A-KDM4B-KDM6A and JARID2-KDM4A-KDM4C-KDM5B co-occupy at enhancers and promoters, respectively. Comprehensive mechanistic studies uncover that KDM1A-KDM6A combinatorially modulates P300/H3K27ac, H3K4me1, H3K4me2 deposition and OCT4 recruitment that eventually directs the OCT4/CORE regulatory network for target gene expression; while co-operative actions of JARID2-KDM4A-KDM4C-KDM5B control H2AK119ub1 and bivalent marks of polycomb-repressive complexes that facilitates the PRC regulatory network for target gene repression. Thus, combinatorial functions of HDMs impact gene expression programs to maintain the ESC state.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather E. Wheeler ◽  
Sally Ploch ◽  
Alvaro N. Barbeira ◽  
Rodrigo Bonazzola ◽  
Angela Andaleon ◽  
...  

AbstractRegulation of gene expression is an important mechanism through which genetic variation can affect complex traits. A substantial portion of gene expression variation can be explained by both local (cis) and distal (trans) genetic variation. Much progress has been made in uncovering cis-acting expression quantitative trait loci (cis-eQTL), but trans-eQTL have been more difficult to identify and replicate. Here we take advantage of our ability to predict the cis component of gene expression coupled with gene mapping methods such as PrediXcan to identify high confidence candidate trans-acting genes and their targets. That is, we correlate the cis component of gene expression with observed expression of genes in different chromosomes. Leveraging the shared cis-acting regulation across tissues, we combine the evidence of association across all available GTEx tissues and find 2356 trans-acting/target gene pairs with high mappability scores. Reassuringly, trans-acting genes are enriched in transcription and nucleic acid binding pathways and target genes are enriched in known transcription factor binding sites. Interestingly, trans-acting genes are more significantly associated with selected complex traits and diseases than target or background genes, consistent with percolating trans effects. Our scripts and summary statistics are publicly available for future studies of trans-acting gene regulation.


eLife ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romaric Bouveret ◽  
Ashley J Waardenberg ◽  
Nicole Schonrock ◽  
Mirana Ramialison ◽  
Tram Doan ◽  
...  

We take a functional genomics approach to congenital heart disease mechanism. We used DamID to establish a robust set of target genes for NKX2-5 wild type and disease associated NKX2-5 mutations to model loss-of-function in gene regulatory networks. NKX2-5 mutants, including those with a crippled homeodomain, bound hundreds of targets including NKX2-5 wild type targets and a unique set of "off-targets", and retained partial functionality. NKXΔHD, which lacks the homeodomain completely, could heterodimerize with NKX2-5 wild type and its cofactors, including E26 transformation-specific (ETS) family members, through a tyrosine-rich homophilic interaction domain (YRD). Off-targets of NKX2-5 mutants, but not those of an NKX2-5 YRD mutant, showed overrepresentation of ETS binding sites and were occupied by ETS proteins, as determined by DamID. Analysis of kernel transcription factor and ETS targets show that ETS proteins are highly embedded within the cardiac gene regulatory network. Our study reveals binding and activities of NKX2-5 mutations on WT target and off-targets, guided by interactions with their normal cardiac and general cofactors, and suggest a novel type of gain-of-function in congenital heart disease.


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