Abundance of female-biased and paucity of male-biased somatically expressed genes on the mouse X-chromosome

BMC Genomics. 2012 Nov 10:13:607. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-13-607.

Abstract

Background: Empirical evaluations of sexually dimorphic expression of genes on the mammalian X-chromosome are needed to understand the evolutionary forces and the gene-regulatory mechanisms controlling this chromosome. We performed a large-scale sex-bias expression analysis of genes on the X-chromosome in six different somatic tissues from mouse.

Results: Our results show that the mouse X-chromosome is enriched with female-biased genes and depleted of male-biased genes. This suggests that feminisation as well as de-masculinisation of the X-chromosome has occurred in terms of gene expression in non-reproductive tissues. Several mechanisms may be responsible for the control of female-biased expression on chromosome X, and escape from X-inactivation is a main candidate. We confirmed escape in case of Tmem29 using RNA-FISH analysis. In addition, we identified novel female-biased non-coding transcripts located in the same female-biased cluster as the well-known coding X-inactivation escapee Kdm5c, likely transcribed from the transition-region between active and silenced domains. We also found that previously known escapees only partially explained the overrepresentation of female-biased X-genes, particularly for tissue-specific female-biased genes. Therefore, the gene set we have identified contains tissue-specific escapees and/or genes controlled by other sexually skewed regulatory mechanisms. Analysis of gene age showed that evolutionarily old X-genes (>100 myr, preceding the radiation of placental mammals) are more frequently female-biased than younger genes.

Conclusion: Altogether, our results have implications for understanding both gene regulation and gene evolution of mammalian X-chromosomes, and suggest that the final result in terms of the X-gene composition (masculinisation versus feminisation) is a compromise between different evolutionary forces acting on reproductive and somatic tissues.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Bias
  • Biological Evolution
  • Brain / metabolism
  • Eye / metabolism
  • Female
  • Gene Expression
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • Genes, X-Linked*
  • Histone Demethylases
  • In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence
  • Liver / metabolism
  • Lung / metabolism
  • Male
  • Membrane Proteins / genetics*
  • Membrane Proteins / metabolism
  • Mice
  • Oxidoreductases, N-Demethylating / genetics*
  • Oxidoreductases, N-Demethylating / metabolism
  • Sex Characteristics
  • X Chromosome*

Substances

  • Membrane Proteins
  • Histone Demethylases
  • Kdm5c protein, mouse
  • Oxidoreductases, N-Demethylating

Associated data

  • GEO/GSM469459
  • GEO/GSM517918