Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA.
School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA.
Genome Biol Evol. 2024 Jul 3;16(7). doi: 10.1093/gbe/evae110.
Understanding and predicting the relationships between genotype and phenotype is often challenging, largely due to the complex nature of eukaryotic gene regulation. A step towards this goal is to map how phenotypic diversity evolves through genomic changes that modify gene regulatory interactions. Using the Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) and related species, we integrate mRNA-seq, proteomic, ATAC-seq and whole-genome resequencing data to understand how specific evolutionary modifications to gene regulatory network components produce differences in venom gene expression. Through comparisons within and between species, we find a remarkably high degree of gene expression and regulatory network variation across even a shallow level of evolutionary divergence. We use these data to test hypotheses about the roles of specific trans-factors and cis-regulatory elements, how these roles may vary across venom genes and gene families, and how variation in regulatory systems drive diversity in venom phenotypes. Our results illustrate that differences in chromatin and genotype at regulatory elements play major roles in modulating expression. However, we also find that enhancer deletions, differences in transcription factor expression, and variation in activity of the insulator protein CTCF also likely impact venom phenotypes. Our findings provide insight into the diversity and gene-specificity of gene regulatory features and highlight the value of comparative studies to link gene regulatory network variation to phenotypic variation.
理解和预测基因型和表型之间的关系通常具有挑战性,主要是因为真核生物基因调控的复杂性。实现这一目标的一个步骤是通过改变基因调控相互作用的基因组变化来绘制表型多样性如何进化。利用草原响尾蛇(Crotalus viridis)和相关物种,我们整合了 mRNA-seq、蛋白质组学、ATAC-seq 和全基因组重测序数据,以了解基因调控网络组件的特定进化修饰如何产生毒液基因表达的差异。通过在种内和种间进行比较,我们发现即使在浅层进化分歧的情况下,基因表达和调控网络的变化程度也非常高。我们利用这些数据来检验关于特定转录因子和顺式调控元件作用的假设,这些作用在毒液基因和基因家族中可能如何变化,以及调控系统的变化如何驱动毒液表型的多样性。我们的结果表明,调控元件的染色质和基因型差异在调节表达中起着重要作用。然而,我们也发现增强子缺失、转录因子表达的差异以及绝缘子蛋白 CTCF 的活性变化也可能影响毒液表型。我们的研究结果提供了对基因调控特征多样性和基因特异性的深入了解,并强调了比较研究将基因调控网络变化与表型变化联系起来的价值。