MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are major post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, yet their origins and functional evolution in mammals remain little understood due to the lack of appropriate comparative data. Using RNA sequencing, we have generated extensive and comparable miRNA data for five organs in six species that represent all main mammalian lineages and birds (the evolutionary outgroup) with the aim to unravel the evolution of mammalian miRNAs. Our analyses reveal an overall expansion of miRNA repertoires in mammals, with threefold accelerated birth rates of miRNA families in placentals and marsupials, facilitated by the de novo emergence of miRNAs in host gene introns. Generally, our analyses suggest a high rate of miRNA family turnover in mammals with many newly emerged miRNA families being lost soon after their formation. Selectively preserved mammalian miRNA families gradually evolved higher expression levels, as well as altered mature sequences and target gene repertoires, and were apparently mainly recruited to exert regulatory functions in nervous tissues. However, miRNAs that originated on the X chromosome evolved high expression levels and potentially diverse functions during spermatogenesis, including meiosis, through selectively driven duplicationdivergence processes. Overall, our study thus provides detailed insights into the birth and evolution of mammalian miRNA genes and the associated selective forces.
Unraveling the evolutionary forces responsible for variations of neutral substitution patterns among taxa or along genomes is a major issue in the identification of functional sequence features. Mammalian genomes show large-scale regional variations of GC-content (the isochores), but the substitution processes at the origin of this structure are poorly understood. We have analyzed the pattern of neutral substitutions in 14.3 Mb of primate noncoding regions. We show that the GC-content toward which sequences are evolving is strongly correlated (r(2) = 0.61, P = 2 10(-16)) with the rate of crossovers (notably in females). This demonstrates that recombination drives the evolution of base composition in human (probably via the process of biased gene conversion). The present substitution patterns are very different from what they had been in the past, resulting in a major modification of the isochore structure of our genome. This non-equilibrium situation suggests that changes of recombination rates occur relatively frequently during evolution, possibly as a consequence of karyotype rearrangements. These results have important implications for understanding the spatial and temporal variations of substitution processes in a broad range of sexual organisms, and for detecting the hallmarks of natural selection in DNA sequences.
BackgroundThe ubiquitous transcription factor Sp1 regulates the expression of a vast number of genes involved in many cellular functions ranging from differentiation to proliferation and apoptosis. Sp1 expression levels show a dramatic increase during transformation and this could play a critical role for tumour development or maintenance. Although Sp1 deregulation might be beneficial for tumour cells, its overexpression induces apoptosis of untransformed cells. Here we further characterised the functional and transcriptional responses of untransformed cells following Sp1 overexpression.Methodology and Principal FindingsWe made use of wild-type and DNA-binding-deficient Sp1 to demonstrate that the induction of apoptosis by Sp1 is dependent on its capacity to bind DNA. Genome-wide expression profiling identified genes involved in cancer, cell death and cell cycle as being enriched among differentially expressed genes following Sp1 overexpression. In silico search to determine the presence of Sp1 binding sites in the promoter region of modulated genes was conducted. Genes that contained Sp1 binding sites in their promoters were enriched among down-regulated genes. The endogenous sp1 gene is one of the most down-regulated suggesting a negative feedback loop induced by overexpressed Sp1. In contrast, genes containing Sp1 binding sites in their promoters were not enriched among up-regulated genes. These results suggest that the transcriptional response involves both direct Sp1-driven transcription and indirect mechanisms. Finally, we show that Sp1 overexpression led to a modified expression of G1/S transition regulatory genes such as the down-regulation of cyclin D2 and the up-regulation of cyclin G2 and cdkn2c/p18 expression. The biological significance of these modifications was confirmed by showing that the cells accumulated in the G1 phase of the cell cycle before the onset of apoptosis.ConclusionThis study shows that the binding to DNA of overexpressed Sp1 induces an inhibition of cell cycle progression that precedes apoptosis and a transcriptional response targeting genes containing Sp1 binding sites in their promoter or not suggesting both direct Sp1-driven transcription and indirect mechanisms.
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