4.8 Article

Interspecies transcriptomics identify genes that underlie disproportionate foot growth in jerboas

期刊

CURRENT BIOLOGY
卷 32, 期 2, 页码 289-+

出版社

CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.10.063

关键词

-

资金

  1. National Science Foundation [ACI-1548562]
  2. National Institutes of Health SIG grant [S10 OD026929]
  3. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council [RGPIN/355731-2013]
  4. Searle Scholar Award from the Kinship Foundation
  5. Pew Biomedical Scholar Award from the Pew Charitable Trusts
  6. Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
  7. National Institutes of Health [R01AR075415]

向作者/读者索取更多资源

This study compares the genetic mechanisms of mouse and jerboa skeletal elongation and identifies genes and pathways associated with the disproportionately rapid elongation of jerboa feet. The study also identifies transcription regulators that might play a key role in genome expression differences between species, with Shox2 being expressed in jerboa metatarsals where it is not detected in other vertebrates. The findings provide a framework for understanding the genetic control of skeletal growth and the malleability of vertebrate limb proportion.
Despite the great diversity of vertebrate limb proportion and our deep understanding of the genetic mechanisms that drive skeletal elongation, little is known about how individual bones reach different lengths in any species. Here, we directly compare the transcriptomes of homologous growth cartilages of the mouse (Mus musculus) and bipedal jerboa (Jaculus jaculus), the latter of which has mouse-likearms but extremely long metatarsals of the feet. Intersecting gene-expression differences in metatarsals and forearms of the two species revealed that about 10% of orthologous genes are associated with the disproportionately rapid elongation of neonatal jerboa feet. These include genes and enriched pathways not previously associated with endochondral elongation as well as those that might diversify skeletal proportion in addition to their known requirements for bone growth throughout the skeleton. We also identified transcription regulators that might act as nodesfor sweeping differences in genome expression between species. Among these, Shox2, which is necessary for proximal limb elongation, has gained expression in jerboa metatarsals where it has not been detected in other vertebrates. We show that Shox2 is sufficient to increase mouse distal limb length, and a nearby putative cis -regulatory region is preferentially accessible in jerboa metatarsals. In addition to mechanisms that might directly promote growth, we found evidence that jerboa foot elongation may occur in part by de-repressing latent growth potential. The genes and pathways that we identified here provide a framework to understand the modular genetic control of skeletal growth and the remarkable malleability of vertebrate limb proportion.

作者

我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。

评论

主要评分

4.8
评分不足

次要评分

新颖性
-
重要性
-
科学严谨性
-
评价这篇论文

推荐

暂无数据
暂无数据