Evolutionary Divergence of Gene and Protein Expression in the Brains of Humans and Chimpanzees.

Bauernfeind, Amy L

Soderblom, Erik J

Turner, Meredith E

Moseley, M Arthur

Ely, John J

Hof, Patrick R

Sherwood, Chet C

Wray, Gregory A

Babbitt, Courtney C

England

2017-03-01T14:17:07Z

2017-03-01T14:17:07Z

2015-07-10

Although transcriptomic profiling has become the standard approach for exploring molecular differences in the primate brain, very little is known about how the expression levels of gene transcripts relate to downstream protein abundance. Moreover, it is unknown whether the relationship changes depending on the brain region or species under investigation. We performed high-throughput transcriptomic (RNA-Seq) and proteomic (liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry) analyses on two regions of the human and chimpanzee brain: The anterior cingulate cortex and caudate nucleus. In both brain regions, we found a lower correlation between mRNA and protein expression levels in humans and chimpanzees than has been reported for other tissues and cell types, suggesting that the brain may engage extensive tissue-specific regulation affecting protein abundance. In both species, only a few categories of biological function exhibited strong correlations between mRNA and protein expression levels. These categories included oxidative metabolism and protein synthesis and modification, indicating that the expression levels of mRNA transcripts supporting these biological functions are more predictive of protein expression compared with other functional categories. More generally, however, the two measures of molecular expression provided strikingly divergent perspectives into differential expression between human and chimpanzee brains: mRNA comparisons revealed significant differences in neuronal communication, ion transport, and regulatory processes, whereas protein comparisons indicated differences in perception and cognition, metabolic processes, and organization of the cytoskeleton. Our results highlight the importance of examining protein expression in evolutionary analyses and call for a more thorough understanding of tissue-specific protein expression levels.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26163674

evv132

1759-6653

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13708

eng

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Genome Biol Evol

10.1093/gbe/evv132

RNA-Seq

chimpanzee

human brain evolution

proteome

transcriptome

Adult

Animals

Brain

Caudate Nucleus

Evolution, Molecular

Gyrus Cinguli

Humans

Middle Aged

Pan troglodytes

Proteins

Proteome

Transcriptome

Evolutionary Divergence of Gene and Protein Expression in the Brains of Humans and Chimpanzees.

Journal article

Wray, Gregory A|0000-0001-5634-5081

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26163674

2276

2288

8

Biology

Clinical Science Departments

Duke

Evolutionary Anthropology

Medicine

Medicine, Cardiology

School of Medicine

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Published online

7