Impact of Nucleosome Positioning on Gene Coexpression Network Architecture

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K20863
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Genome biology; Plant molecular biology/Plant physiology
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Aoki Yuichi 東北大学, 東北メディカル・メガバンク機構, 助教 (40747599)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 遺伝子発現制御 / 遺伝子共発現 / 遺伝子共発現ネットワーク / ヌクレオソーム / シロイヌナズナ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we investigated genomic features associated with the functional relationships of Arabidopsis thaliana genes by using gene coexpression data in ATTED-II. Gene coexpression, a similarity of gene expression profiles, provides a genome-wide approximation of functional gene relationships at transcriptional regulation level. In comparative analysis between the similarity of genomic features and the strength of gene coexpression, we found that genes exhibiting similar average expression level tend to be coexpressed strongly, and the average expression level can be well explained by nucleosome positioning around the transcription start site. We also revealed that the evolutionary oldness of protein coding regions strongly related to both nucleosome positioning and gene coexpression. We anticipate our results to be a starting point for understanding the mechanisms underlying cellular systems evolution, and for developing a genome-based gene function prediction method.

Free Research Field

分子生物学・バイオインフォマティクス・植物分子生理科学・ゲノム生物学