Abstract
Isolation of copy number variations and chromosomal duplications at high frequency in the laboratory suggested that Caenorhabditis elegans tolerates increased gene dosage. Here, we addressed if a general dosage compensation mechanism acts at the level of mRNA expression in C. elegans. We characterized gene dosage and mRNA expression in 3 chromosomal duplications and a fosmid integration strain using DNA-seq and mRNA-seq. Our results show that on average, increased gene dosage leads to increased mRNA expression, pointing to a lack of genome-wide dosage compensation. Different genes within the same chromosomal duplication show variable levels of mRNA increase, suggesting feedback regulation of individual genes. Somatic dosage compensation and germline repression reduce the level of mRNA increase from X chromosomal duplications. Together, our results show a lack of genome-wide dosage compensation mechanism acting at the mRNA level in C. elegans and highlight the role of epigenetic and individual gene regulation contributing to the varied consequences of increased gene dosage.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | jkac151 |
| Journal | G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Research reported in this publication was supported by National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01GM107293 and R35GM130311.
Funding Information:
The authors thank Marissa Knoll for contributing to the OP37 strain collection. Some strains were provided by the CGC, which is funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Genetics Society of America. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Caenorhabditis elegans
- DNA-seq
- RNA-seq
- X chromosome
- chromosome duplications
- copy number
- dosage compensation
- gene dosage
- gene expression
- modENCODE