Journal
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Volume 37, Issue 6, Pages 1679-1693Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa036
Keywords
cis-element frequency; dual eigenmodule; polarized eigenvector; Alu element; cognition
Funding
- Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB13040600]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [11871462, 91530105]
- National Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Key Laboratory of Systems and Control of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2017YFC0908400]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
To understand the genomic basis accounting for the phenotypic differences between human and apes, we compare the matrices consisting of the cis-element frequencies in the proximal regulatory regions of their genomes. One such frequency matrix is represented by a robust singular value decomposition. For each singular value, the negative and positive ends of the sorted motif eigenvector correspond to the dual ends of the sorted gene eigenvector, respectively, comprising a dual eigen-module defined by cis-regulatory element frequencies (CREF). The CREF eigen-modules at levels 1, 2, 3, and 6 are highly conserved across humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans. The key biological processes embedded in the top three CREF eigen-modules are reproduction versus embryogenesis, fetal maturation versus immune system, and stress responses versus mitosis. Although the divergence at the nucleotide level between the chimpanzee and human genome was small, their cis-element frequency matrices crossed a singularity point, at which the fourth and fifth singular values were identical. The CREF eigen-modules corresponding to the fourth and fifth singular values were reorganized along the evolution from apes to human. Interestingly, the fourth sorted gene eigenvector encodes the phenotypes unique to human such as long-term memory, language development, and social behavior. The number of motifs present on Alu elements increases substantially at the fourth level. The motif analysis together with the cases of human-specific Alu insertions suggests that mutations related to Alu elements play a critical role in the evolution of the human-phenotypic gene eigenvector.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available