Body maps on the human genome.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
Chromosomes have territories, or preferred locales, in the cell nucleus. When these sites are taken into account, some large-scale structure of the human genome emerges.Results
The synoptic picture is that genes highly expressed in particular topologically compact tissues are not randomly distributed on the genome. Rather, such tissue-specific genes tend to map somatotopically onto the complete chromosome set. They seem to form a "genome homunculus": a multi-dimensional, genome-wide body representation extending across chromosome territories of the entire spermcell nucleus. The antero-posterior axis of the body significantly corresponds to the head-tail axis of the nucleus, and the dorso-ventral body axis to the central-peripheral nucleus axis.Conclusions
This large-scale genomic structure includes thousands of genes. One rationale for a homuncular genome structure would be to minimize connection costs in genetic networks. Somatotopic maps in cerebral cortex have been reported for over a century.
SUBMITTER: Cherniak C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3905923 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:The proteomes most likely to contain clinically useful disease biomarkers are those of human body fluids. Three recent large-scale proteomic analyses of tears, urine and seminal plasma using the latest mass spectrometric technology will provide useful datasets for biomarker discovery.
| S-EPMC1794581 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundWe have previously described evidence for a statistically significant, global, supra-chromosomal representation of the human body that appears to stretch over the entire genome.ResultsHere, we extend the genome mapping model, zooming down to the typical individual animal cell. Its cellular organization appears to be significantly mapped onto the human genome: Evidence is reported for a "cellunculus" - on the model of a homunculus, on the H. sapiens genome.ConclusionsBasic cell structure turns out to map similarly onto the total genome, mirrored via genes that express in particular cell organelles (e.g., "nuclear membrane"). Similar cell maps may also appear on individual chromosomes that map topologically on the dorsoventral body axis. This seems to constitute some of the basic structural and functional organization of nucleus and chromosome architecture.
| S-EPMC6425595 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Understanding the diversity of human tissues is fundamental to disease and requires linking genetic information, which is identical in most of an individual's cells, with epigenetic mechanisms that could have tissue-specific roles. Surveys of DNA methylation in human tissues have established a complex landscape including both tissue-specific and invariant methylation patterns. Here we report high coverage methylomes that catalogue cytosine methylation in all contexts for the major human organ systems, integrated with matched transcriptomes and genomic sequence. By combining these diverse data types with each individuals' phased genome, we identified widespread tissue-specific differential CG methylation (mCG), partially methylated domains, allele-specific methylation and transcription, and the unexpected presence of non-CG methylation (mCH) in almost all human tissues. mCH correlated with tissue-specific functions, and using this mark, we made novel predictions of genes that escape X-chromosome inactivation in specific tissues. Overall, DNA methylation in several genomic contexts varies substantially among human tissues.
| S-EPMC4499021 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Tens of millions of base pairs of euchromatic human genome sequence, including many protein-coding genes, have no known location in the human genome. We describe an approach for localizing the human genome's missing pieces using the patterns of genome sequence variation created by population admixture. We mapped the locations of 70 scaffolds spanning 4 million base pairs of the human genome's unplaced euchromatic sequence, including more than a dozen protein-coding genes, and identified 8 new large interchromosomal segmental duplications. We find that most of these sequences are hidden in the genome's heterochromatin, particularly its pericentromeric regions. Many cryptic, pericentromeric genes are expressed at the RNA level and have been maintained intact for millions of years while their expression patterns diverged from those of paralogous genes elsewhere in the genome. We describe how knowledge of the locations of these sequences can inform disease association and genome biology studies.
| S-EPMC3683849 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Mammalian interphase chromosomes interact with the nuclear lamina (NL) through hundreds of large lamina-associated domains (LADs). We report a method to map NL contacts genome-wide in single human cells. Analysis of nearly 400 maps reveals a core architecture consisting of gene-poor LADs that contact the NL with high cell-to-cell consistency, interspersed by LADs with more variable NL interactions. The variable contacts tend to be cell-type specific and are more sensitive to changes in genome ploidy than the consistent contacts. Single-cell maps indicate that NL contacts involve multivalent interactions over hundreds of kilobases. Moreover, we observe extensive intra-chromosomal coordination of NL contacts, even over tens of megabases. Such coordinated loci exhibit preferential interactions as detected by Hi-C. Finally, the consistency of NL contacts is inversely linked to gene activity in single cells and correlates positively with the heterochromatic histone modification H3K9me3. These results highlight fundamental principles of single-cell chromatin organization. VIDEO ABSTRACT.
| S-EPMC4583798 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Formation and repair of UV-induced DNA damage in human cells are affected by cellular context. To study factors influencing damage formation and repair genome-wide, we developed a highly sensitive single-nucleotide resolution damage mapping method [high-sensitivity damage sequencing (HS-Damage-seq)]. Damage maps of both cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) photoproducts [(6-4)PPs] from UV-irradiated cellular and naked DNA revealed that the effect of transcription factor binding on bulky adducts formation varies, depending on the specific transcription factor, damage type, and strand. We also generated time-resolved UV damage maps of both CPDs and (6-4)PPs by HS-Damage-seq and compared them to the complementary repair maps of the human genome obtained by excision repair sequencing to gain insight into factors that affect UV-induced DNA damage and repair and ultimately UV carcinogenesis. The combination of the two methods revealed that, whereas UV-induced damage is virtually uniform throughout the genome, repair is affected by chromatin states, transcription, and transcription factor binding, in a manner that depends on the type of DNA damage.
| S-EPMC5495279 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Meiotic recombination is a fundamental evolutionary process driving diversity in eukaryotes. In mammals, recombination is known to occur preferentially at specific genomic regions. Using topological data analysis (TDA), a branch of applied topology that extracts global features from large data sets, we developed an efficient method for mapping recombination at fine scales. When compared to standard linkage-based methods, TDA can deal with a larger number of SNPs and genomes without incurring prohibitive computational costs. We applied TDA to 1,000 Genomes Project data and constructed high-resolution whole-genome recombination maps of seven human populations. Our analysis shows that recombination is generally under-represented within transcription start sites. However, the binding sites of specific transcription factors are enriched for sites of recombination. These include transcription factors that regulate the expression of meiosis- and gametogenesis-specific genes, cell cycle progression, and differentiation blockage. Additionally, our analysis identifies an enrichment for sites of recombination at repeat-derived loci matched by piwi-interacting RNAs.
| S-EPMC4965322 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Purpose: Exploring the alteration in CREB/CRTC binding related to long-term memory Methods: The nuclei of Drosophila mushroom bodies were purified and the histone acetylation and CREB/CRTC binding were examined by ChIP-seq using specific antibodies. The sequencing was performed using Miseq, and aligned to dm3 using CLCbio. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed by peak calling using PICS and ERD equipped on Strand NGS software. This method using two algorisms excludes false-positive calling of peaks. The PICS and ERD were run using a default setting except for the following parameters; for PICS, 120 bp as an average fragment length, 10 bp as a minimum distance between forward and reverse reads, 200 bp as a minimum distance between forward and reverse reads, 100 bp as a window width, with 5% false discovery rate; for ERD, 1.5 as an enrichment factor, 100 bp as a window size, 10 bp as a window slide size, 100 bp as a minimum region size. The peaks obtained by ERD analysis were filtered by an enrichment factor of 2, and a density of reads at 0.12 for CREB and 0.2 for CRTC. The CREB and the CRTC binding sites were determined as the peak-called region in at least 2 samples out of the three replicates. The CREB and the CRTC binding sites located 200 bp vicinity to each other were defined as the CREB/CRTC binding sites. In parallel, the read counts were obtained in the 1 kb window covering entire genome and analyzed by DESeq2, to determine the region enriched with CREB/CRTC in a specific group of samples. The region with increased or decreased CREB/CRTC binding were determined if the region were defined by the CREB/CRTC binding sites in the above criteria. Results: Using an optimized data analysis workflow, the filtered reads amounted to 8-11million reads for CREB in each of 3 replicates, 8-17 million reads for CRTC in each of 3 replicates, and 4.4 million reads for input. Using anti-CREB antibody, we found 239 significant increases in CREB binding out of 4995 CREB/CRTC binding sites 1 day after training. Using anti-CRTC antibody, we found 4989 significant increases in CRTC binding out of 4995 CREB/CRTC binding sites 1 day after spaced training. Conclusions: Our study shows that, although CREB binding is mostly unchanged, CRTC binding is significantly increased after long-term memory formation in Drosophila mushroom bodies.
2017-02-09 | GSE81456 | GEO
Project description:Placental dysfunction is implicated in many pregnancy complications, including preeclampsia and preterm birth (PTB). While both these syndromes are influenced by environmental risk factors, they also have a substantial genetic component that is not well understood. Precisely controlled gene expression during development is crucial to proper placental function and often mediated through gene regulatory enhancers. However, we lack accurate maps of placental enhancer activity due to the challenges of assaying the placenta and the difficulty of comprehensively identifying enhancers. To address the gap in our knowledge of gene regulatory elements in the placenta, we used a two-step machine learning pipeline to synthesize existing functional genomics studies, transcription factor (TF) binding patterns, and evolutionary information to predict placental enhancers. The trained classifiers accurately distinguish enhancers from the genomic background and placental enhancers from enhancers active in other tissues. Genomic features collected from tissues and cell lines involved in pregnancy are the most predictive of placental regulatory activity. Applying the classifiers genome-wide enabled us to create a map of 33,010 predicted placental enhancers, including 4,562 high-confidence enhancer predictions. The genome-wide placental enhancers are significantly enriched nearby genes associated with placental development and birth disorders and for SNPs associated with gestational age. These genome-wide predicted placental enhancers provide candidate regions for further testing in vitro, will assist in guiding future studies of genetic associations with pregnancy phenotypes, and aid interpretation of potential mechanisms of action for variants found through genetic studies.
| S-EPMC6320013 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Neurons are the longest-lived cells in our bodies and lack DNA replication, which makes them reliant on a limited repertoire of DNA repair mechanisms to maintain genome fidelity. These repair mechanisms decline with age, but we have limited knowledge of how genome instability emerges and what strategies neurons and other long-lived cells may have evolved to protect their genomes over the human life span. A targeted sequencing approach in human embryonic stem cell-induced neurons shows that, in neurons, DNA repair is enriched at well-defined hotspots that protect essential genes. These hotspots are enriched with histone H2A isoforms and RNA binding proteins and are associated with evolutionarily conserved elements of the human genome. These findings provide a basis for understanding genome integrity as it relates to aging and disease in the nervous system.
| S-EPMC9179101 | biostudies-literature