CHRFAM7A: a human-specific α7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor gene shows differential responsiveness of human intestinal epithelial cells to LPS

The human genome contains a unique, distinct, and human-specific alpha 7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (alpha 7nAChR) gene [CHRNA7 (gene-encoding alpha 7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor)] called CHRFAM7A (gene-encoding dup-alpha 7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor) on a locus of chromosome 15 associated with mental illness, including schizophrenia. Located 59 upstream from the wild-type CHRNA7 gene that is found in other vertebrates, we demonstrate CHRFAM7A expression in a broad range of epithelial cells and sequenced the CHRFAM7A transcript found in normal human fetal small intestine epithelial (FHs) cells to prove its identity. We then compared its expression to CHRNA7 in 11 gut epithelial cell lines, showed that there is a differential response to LPS when compared to CHRNA7, and characterized the CHRFAM7A promoter. We report that both CHRFAM7A and CHRNA7 gene expression are widely distributed in human epithelial cell lines but that the levels of CHRFAM7A gene expression vary up to 5000-fold between different gut epithelial cells. A 3-hour treatment of epithelial cells with 100 ng/ml LPS increased CHRFAM7A gene expression by almost 1000-fold but had little effect on CHRNA7 gene expression. Mapping the regulatory elements responsible for CHRFAM7A gene expression identifies a 1 kb sequence in the UTR of the CHRFAM7A gene that ismodulated by LPS. Taken together, these data establish the presence, identity, and differential regulation of the human-specific CHRFAM7A gene in human gut epithelial cells. In light of the fact that CHRFAM7A expression is reported to modulate ligand binding to, and alter the activity of, the wild-type alpha 7nAChR ligand-gated pentameric ion channel, the findings point to the existence of a species-specific alpha 7nAChR response that might regulate gut epithelial function in a human-specific fashion.