Department of Biomedical Informatics, Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, MOE Key Lab of Cardiovascular Sciences, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, 38 Xueyuan Rd, Beijing, China.
Department of Pathogenobiology, College of Basic Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
Brief Bioinform. 2018 Mar 1;19(2):188-198. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbw125.
Tremendous differences between human sexes are universally observed. Therefore, identifying and analyzing the sex-biased genes are becoming basically important for uncovering the mystery of sex differences and personalized medicine. Here, we presented a computational method to identify sex-biased genes from public gene expression databases. We obtained 1407 female-biased genes (FGs) and 1096 male-biased genes (MGs) across 14 different tissues. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that compared with MGs, FGs have higher evolutionary rate, higher single-nucleotide polymorphism density, less homologous gene numbers and smaller phyletic age. FGs have lower expression level, higher tissue specificity and later expressed stage in body development. Moreover, FGs are highly involved in immune-related functions, whereas MGs are more enriched in metabolic process. In addition, cellular network analysis revealed that MGs have higher degree, more cellular activating signaling and tend to be located in cellular inner space, whereas FGs have lower degree, more cellular repressing signaling and tend to be located in cellular outer space. Finally, the identified sex-biased genes and the discovered biological insights together can be a valuable resource helpful for investigating sex-biased physiology and medicine, for example sex-biased disease diagnosis and therapy, which represents one important aspect of personalized and precision medicine.
人类性别之间存在巨大差异，这是普遍观察到的。因此，识别和分析性别偏向基因对于揭示性别差异和个性化医学的奥秘变得至关重要。在这里，我们提出了一种从公共基因表达数据库中识别性别偏向基因的计算方法。我们在 14 种不同组织中获得了 1407 个雌性偏向基因（FGs）和 1096 个雄性偏向基因（MGs）。生物信息学分析表明，与 MGs 相比，FGs 具有更高的进化率、更高的单核苷酸多态性密度、更少的同源基因数量和更小的系统发生年龄。FGs 的表达水平较低，组织特异性较高，在身体发育中的表达阶段较晚。此外，FGs 高度参与免疫相关功能，而 MGs 则更多地富集在代谢过程中。此外，细胞网络分析表明，MGs 的度数较高，细胞激活信号较多，倾向于位于细胞内部空间，而 FGs 的度数较低，细胞抑制信号较多，倾向于位于细胞外部空间。最后，所鉴定的性别偏向基因和发现的生物学见解可以共同成为一个有价值的资源，有助于研究性别偏向的生理学和医学，例如性别偏向疾病的诊断和治疗，这是个性化和精准医学的一个重要方面。
