Genome-wide comparative analysis of microRNAs in three non-human primates

被引:27
作者
Brameier M. [1 ]
机构
[1] Primate Genetics Laboratory, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research
关键词
miRNA Precursor; Mature Sequence; Human miRNAs; Negative Prediction; Precursor Sequence;
D O I
10.1186/1756-0500-3-64
中图分类号
学科分类号
摘要
Background. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are negative regulators of gene expression in multicellular eukaryotes. With the recently completed sequencing of three primate genomes, the study of miRNA evolution within the primate lineage has only begun and may be expected to provide the genetic and molecular explanations for many phenotypic differences between human and non-human primates. Findings. We scanned all three genomes of non-human primates, including chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), and rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta), for homologs of human miRNA genes. Besides sequence homology analysis, our comparative method relies on various postprocessing filters to verify other features of miRNAs, including, in particular, their precursor structure or their occurrence (prediction) in other primate genomes. Our study allows direct comparisons between the different species in terms of their miRNA repertoire, their evolutionary distance to human, the effects of filters, as well as the identification of common and species-specific miRNAs in the primate lineage. More than 500 novel putative miRNA genes have been discovered in orangutan that show at least 85 percent identity in precursor sequence. Only about 40 percent are found to be 100 percent identical with their human ortholog. Conclusion. Homologs of human precursor miRNAs with perfect or near-perfect sequence identity may be considered to be likely functional in other primates. The computational identification of homologs with less similar sequence, instead, requires further evidence to be provided. © 2010 Brameier; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
引用
收藏
相关论文
共 25 条
[11]  
Altuvia Y., Landgraf P., Lithwick G., Elefant N., Pfeffer S., Aravin A., Brownstein M.J., Tuschl T., Margalit H., Clustering and conservation patterns of human microRNAs, Nucleic Acids Research, 33, 8, pp. 2697-2706, (2005)
[12]  
Hertel J., Lindemeyer M., Missal K., Fried C., Tanzer A., Flamm C., Hofacker I.L., Stadler P.F., Heinze S., Donath A., Findeiss S., Keller S., Peter K., Joris J., Muhmel J., Dienelt M., Hellwig L., Lohet M., Schmidtchen H., Jagiella N., Aderhold A., Kasterer P.-R., Skodawessely T., Hodl M., Wurzinger B., Attolini C.S.-O., Omasits U., Kruttner S., Anzengruber R., Lenek D., Neumayr G., Schmittner S., Wohlfart R., The expansion of the metazoan microRNA repertoire, BMC Genomics, 7, (2006)
[13]  
Wang X., Zhang J., Li F., Gu J., He T., Zhang X., Li Y., MicroRNA identification based on sequence and structure alignment, Bioinformatics, 21, 18, pp. 3610-3614, (2005)
[14]  
Nam J.-W., Shin K.-R., Han J., Lee Y., Kim V.N., Zhang B.-T., Human microRNA prediction through a probabilistic co-learning model of sequence and structure, Nucleic Acids Research, 33, 11, pp. 3570-3581, (2005)
[15]  
Berezikov E., Guryev V., Van De Belt J., Wienholds E., Plasterk R.H.A., Cuppen E., Phylogenetic shadowing and computational identification of human microRNA genes, Cell, 120, 1, pp. 21-24, (2005)
[16]  
Brameier M., Wiuf C., Ab initio identification of human microRNAs based on structure motifs, BMC Bioinformatics, 8, (2007)
[17]  
Yue J., Sheng Y., Orwig K.E., Identification of novel homologous microRNA genes in the rhesus macaque genome, BMC Genomics, 9, (2008)
[18]  
Baev V., Daskalova E., Minkov I., Computational identification of novel microRNA homologs in the chimpanzee genome, Computational Biology and Chemistry, 33, 1, pp. 62-70, (2009)
[19]  
Griffths-Jones S., Grocock R., Van Dongen S., Bateman A., Enright A., MiRBase: MicroRNA sequences, targets and gene nomenclature, Nucleic Acids Res, 34, (2006)
[20]  
Raaum R., Sterner K., Noviello C., Stewart C., Disotell T., Catarrhine primate divergence dates estimated from complete mitochondrial genomes: Concordance with fossil and nuclear DNA evidence, J Hum Evol, 48, 3, pp. 237-257, (2005)