在基因表达方面，女性比男性更具变异性吗？微阵列数据集的荟萃分析。
Are females more variable than males in gene expression? Meta-analysis of microarray datasets.
作者信息
Itoh Yuichiro, Arnold Arthur P
机构信息
Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology, Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology of the Brain Research Institute, University of California, 610 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7239 USA.
出版信息
Biol Sex Differ. 2015 Oct 29;6:18. doi: 10.1186/s13293-015-0036-8. eCollection 2015.
BACKGROUND
The majority of preclinical biomedical research involves studies of males rather than females. It is thought that researchers have avoided females based on the idea that female traits are more variable than those of males because of cyclic variation in effects of ovarian hormones.
METHODS
To test the assumption of inherently greater female variability, we analyzed 293 microarray datasets measuring gene expression in various tissues of mice and humans, comprising analysis of more than 5 million probes.
RESULTS
Meta-analysis showed that on average, male gene expression is slightly more variable than that of females although the difference is small. We also tested if the X chromosome of humans shows greater variability in gene expression in males than in females, as might be expected because of hemizygous exposure of polymorphic X alleles but again found little sex difference.
CONCLUSION
Our analysis supports and extends previous studies reporting no overall greater phenotypic variability in females.
背景
大多数临床前生物医学研究涉及雄性而非雌性。据认为，研究人员避开雌性是基于这样一种观点，即由于卵巢激素作用的周期性变化，雌性特征比雄性更具变异性。
方法
为了检验雌性固有变异性更大这一假设，我们分析了293个微阵列数据集，这些数据集测量了小鼠和人类各种组织中的基因表达，包括对超过500万个探针的分析。
结果
荟萃分析表明，平均而言，雄性基因表达的变异性略高于雌性，尽管差异很小。我们还测试了人类X染色体在雄性中是否比雌性表现出更大的基因表达变异性，因为多态性X等位基因的半合子暴露可能会导致这种情况，但同样未发现明显的性别差异。
结论
我们的分析支持并扩展了先前的研究，这些研究报告称雌性在总体上没有更大的表型变异性。
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