Association of tissue lineage and gene expression: conservatively and differentially expressed genes define common and special functions of tissues

BMC Bioinformatics

Research

Tao Xu¹  Yao Yu²  Xuan Li³  Pei Hao³  Yongtao Yu⁴ 

[1] College of life science and biotechnology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 200240, Shanghai, China;Key Lab of Systems Biology/Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031, Shanghai, China;Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031, Shanghai, PR China;Key Lab of Systems Biology/Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031, Shanghai, China;Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology, 100 Qinzhou Road, 200235, Shanghai, China;Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology, 100 Qinzhou Road, 200235, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Gene Ontology;    Prion Disease;    Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy;    Gene Expression Divergence;    Tissue Group;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2105-11-S11-S1

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEmbryogenesis is the process by which the embryo is formed, develops, and establishes developmental hierarchies of tissues. The recent advance in microarray technology made it possible to investigate the tissue specific patterns of gene expression and their relationship with tissue lineages. This study is focused on how tissue specific functions, tissue lineage, and cell differentiation are correlated, which is essential to understand embryonic development and organism complexity.ResultsWe performed individual gene and gene set based analysis on multiple tissue expression data, in association with the classic topology of mammalian fate maps of embryogenesis. For each sub-group of tissues on the fate map, conservatively, differentially and correlatively expressed genes or gene sets were identified. Tissue distance was found to correlate with gene expression divergence. Tissues of the ectoderm or mesoderm origins from the same segments on the fate map shared more similar expression pattern than those from different origins. Conservatively expressed genes or gene sets define common functions in a tissue group and are related to tissue specific diseases, which is supported by results from Gene Ontology and KEGG pathway analysis. Gene expression divergence is larger in certain human tissues than in the mouse homologous tissues.ConclusionThe results from tissue lineage and gene expression analysis indicate that common function features of neighbor tissue groups were defined by the conservatively expressed genes and were related to tissue specific diseases, and differentially expressed genes contribute to the functional divergence of tissues. The difference of gene expression divergence in human and mouse homologous tissues reflected the organism complexity, i.e. distinct neural development levels and different body sizes.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Hao et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010