Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Institute of Integrative Biology, Biosciences Building, University of Liverpool Crown Street, Liverpool L69 7ZB, United Kingdom.
Sci Rep. 2014 Jan 28;4:3912. doi: 10.1038/srep03912.
Organismal development is the most dynamic period of the life cycle, yet we have only a rough understanding of the dynamics of gene expression during adolescent transition. Here we show that adolescence in Caenorhabditis elegans is characterized by a spectacular expression shift of conserved and highly polymorphic genes. Using a high resolution time series we found that in adolescent worms over 10,000 genes changed their expression. These genes were clustered according to their expression patterns. One cluster involved in chromatin remodelling showed a brief up-regulation around 50 h post-hatch. At the same time a spectacular shift in expression was observed. Sequence comparisons for this cluster across many genotypes revealed diversifying selection. Strongly up-regulated genes showed signs of purifying selection in non-coding regions, indicating that adolescence-active genes are constrained on their regulatory properties. Our findings improve our understanding of adolescent transition and help to eliminate experimental artefacts due to incorrect developmental timing.
生物体发育是生命周期中最具活力的阶段，但我们对于青春期过渡期间基因表达的动态变化仅有粗略的了解。在这里，我们发现秀丽隐杆线虫的青春期以保守且高度多态性基因的显著表达变化为特征。使用高分辨率时间序列，我们发现青春期蠕虫中有超过 10000 个基因改变了它们的表达。这些基因根据其表达模式聚类。一个涉及染色质重塑的基因簇在孵化后 50 小时左右短暂上调。与此同时，观察到了一个显著的表达变化。对这个簇在许多基因型中的序列比较揭示了多样化选择。强烈上调的基因在非编码区域表现出纯化选择的迹象，表明青春期活跃的基因在其调控特性上受到限制。我们的研究结果提高了我们对青春期过渡的理解，并有助于消除由于发育时间不正确而导致的实验假象。
