Dataset Information

Motif discovery in promoters of genes co-localized and co-expressed during myeloid cells differentiation.

ABSTRACT: Genes co-expressed may be under similar promoter-based and/or position-based regulation. Although data on expression, position and function of human genes are available, their true integration still represents a challenge for computational biology, hampering the identification of regulatory mechanisms. We carried out an integrative analysis of genomic position, functional annotation and promoters of genes expressed in myeloid cells. Promoter analysis was conducted by a novel multi-step method for discovering putative regulatory elements, i.e. over-represented motifs, in a selected set of promoters, as compared with a background model. The combination of transcriptional, structural and functional data allowed the identification of sets of promoters pertaining to groups of genes co-expressed and co-localized in regions of the human genome. The application of motif discovery to 26 groups of genes co-expressed in myeloid cells differentiation and co-localized in the genome showed that there are more over-represented motifs in promoters of co-expressed and co-localized genes than in promoters of simply co-expressed genes (CEG). Motifs, which are similar to the binding sequences of known transcription factors, non-uniformly distributed along promoter sequences and/or occurring in highly co-expressed subset of genes were identified. Co-expressed and co-localized gene sets were grouped in two co-expressed genomic meta-regions, putatively representing functional domains of a high-level expression regulation.

SUBMITTER: Coppe A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2632922 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThe understanding of the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation remains a challenge for molecular biologists in the post-genome era. It is hypothesized that the regulatory regions of genes expressed in the same tissue or cell type share a similar structure. Though several studies have analyzed the promoters of genes expressed in specific metazoan tissues or cells, little research has been done in plants. Hence finding specific patterns of motifs to explain the promoter architecture of co-expressed genes in plants could shed light on their transcription mechanism.ResultsWe identified novel patterns of sets of motifs in promoters of genes co-expressed in four different plant structures (PSs) and in the entire plant in Arabidopsis thaliana. Sets of genes expressed in four PSs (flower, seed, root, shoot) and housekeeping genes expressed in the entire plant were taken from a database of co-expressed genes in A. thaliana. PS-specific motifs were predicted using three motif-discovery algorithms, 8 of which are novel, to the best of our knowledge. A support vector machine was trained using the average upstream distance of the identified motifs from the translation start site on both strands of binding sites. The correctly classified promoters per PS were used to construct specific patterns of sets of motifs to describe the promoter architecture of those co-expressed genes. The discovered PS-specific patterns were tested in the entire A. thaliana genome, correctly identifying 77.8%, 81.2%, 70.8% and 53.7% genes expressed in petal differentiation, synergid cells, root hair and trichome, as well as 88.4% housekeeping genes.ConclusionsWe present five patterns of sets of motifs which describe the promoter architecture of co-expressed genes in five PSs with the ability to predict them from the entire A. thaliana genome. Based on these findings, we conclude that the positioning and orientation of transcription factor binding sites at specific distances from the translation start site is a reliable measure to differentiate promoters of genes expressed in different A. thaliana structures from background genomic promoters. Our method can be used to predict novel motifs and decipher a similar promoter architecture for genes co-expressed in A. thaliana under different conditions.

Project description:Gene expression analyses have led to a better understanding of growth control of prostate cancer cells. We and others have identified the presence of several zinc finger transcription factors in the neoplastic prostate, suggesting a potential role for these genes in the regulation of the prostate cancer transcriptome. One of the transcription factors (TFs) identified in the prostate cancer epithelial cells was the Wilms tumor gene (WT1). To rapidly identify coordinately expressed prostate cancer growth control genes that may be regulated by WT1, we used an in silico approach.Evolutionary conserved transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) recognized by WT1, EGR1, SP1, SP2, AP2 and GATA1 were identified in the promoters of 24 differentially expressed prostate cancer genes from eight mammalian species. To test the relationship between sequence conservation and function, chromatin of LNCaP prostate cancer and kidney 293 cells were tested for TF binding using chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP). Multiple putative TFBS in gene promoters of placental mammals were found to be shared with those in human gene promoters and some were conserved between genomes that diverged about 170 million years ago (i.e., primates and marsupials), therefore implicating these sites as candidate binding sites. Among those genes coordinately expressed with WT1 was the kallikrein-related peptidase 3 (KLK3) gene commonly known as the prostate specific antigen (PSA) gene. This analysis located several potential WT1 TFBS in the PSA gene promoter and led to the rapid identification of a novel putative binding site confirmed in vivo by ChIP. Conversely for two prostate growth control genes, androgen receptor (AR) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), known to be transcriptionally regulated by WT1, regulatory sequence conservation was observed and TF binding in vivo was confirmed by ChIP.Overall, this targeted approach rapidly identified important candidate WT1-binding elements in genes coordinately expressed with WT1 in prostate cancer cells, thus enabling a more focused functional analysis of the most likely target genes in prostate cancer progression. Identifying these genes will help to better understand how gene regulation is altered in these tumor cells.

Dataset Information

Motif discovery in promoters of genes co-localized and co-expressed during myeloid cells differentiation.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets