RNA gene found to be one of the fastest evolving regions in human genome

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RNA gene found to be one of the fastest evolving regions in human

genome

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19489

Since completing the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome last year,

geneticists have spent many hours comparing human DNA sequences to

those of our closest evolutionary relative, looking for the

differences that distinguish the two species.

Now a team of researchers has found the human DNA sequence with the

most dramatically increased rate of change.

The function of this region of DNA is still unknown, but it appears

to be directly involved in the development of the human brain. " It's

very exciting to use evolution to look at regions of our genome that

haven't been explored yet, " said Medical Institute

investigator Haussler, the leader of the team that included

scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, the

University of California, , the University of Brussels, and

Universiti Claude Bernard in France.

Their article will be published in an advance online publication on

August 16, 2006, in the journal Nature.

Haussler's group found the DNA region using a technique developed by

Pollard, a former postdoctoral fellow in Haussler's lab who

is now an assistant professor at the University of California, .

Pollard compared the DNA sequences of chimps, mice, and rats to find

the regions that had remained largely unchanged over the 80 million

years or so since the common ancestor of those organisms. She then

examined the same regions in humans to identify those that had

changed markedly in the 6 million years since humans and chimps

diverged from a common ancestor.

" Some DNA regions have hardly changed at all over many millions of

years in most species, " said Pollard. " My twist was to look for the

subset of these regions that have changed just in humans. "

Forty-nine regions, which the team called human accelerated regions

(HARs), rose to the top of the list. Surprisingly, only two of these

regions code for proteins. Instead, the majority of the regions tend

to be located near genes that are involved in regulating the function

of genes. Furthermore, 12 of the regions are adjacent to genes

involved in the development of the brain.

The Nature paper looks in depth at the region that has undergone the

most change in the human lineage, which the researchers called HAR1

(for human accelerated region 1). Only two of the region's 118 bases

changed in the 310 million years separating the evolutionary lineages

of the chicken and the chimp. Incredibly, since the human lineage

separated from that of the chimp, 18 of the 118 nucleotides have

changed. This region " stood out, " said Pollard.

But what does it do? To find out, Pollard began working with the wet

lab, led by Sofie Salama. Haussler established the wet lab following

his appointment as an HHMI investigator. After months of work, Salama

and her lab mates determined that HAR1 is part of a larger DNA that

is transcribed into RNA in the brain.

Then Salama got lucky. Pierre Vanderhaegen, a neuroscientist at the

University of Brussels, was visiting Santa Cruz because he knew

Salama's husband, who is also a neuroscientist. " I learned that

Pierre was setting up to do in-situ hybridizations [at his lab in

Brussels] to look at gene expression patterns in human embryonic

brain samples, " said Salama. " So I gave him a DNA probe from the HAR1

region and said, 'Try this.' "

A few months later Vanderhaegen e-mailed Salama with exciting news.

He had discovered that RNA including the HAR1 region is first

produced between the 7th and 9th weeks of gestation in human embryos.

Furthermore, the RNA was produced by a Cajal-Retzius neuron, a

particular type of cell that plays a critical role in creating the

six layers of neurons in the human cortex.

Salama then determined that HAR1 actually lies in the region of

overlap of two RNA genes that are transcribed in opposite directions

along the DNA. Both genes appear to make RNAs that are not translated

into proteins. The UC Santa Cruz team showed that these RNAs fold

into particular shapes characterized by several helices. The changes

to HAR1 during human evolution seem to have altered the length and

configuration of some of these helices. " It's a brand new structure,

unique, " said Salama. " The downside is that we don't have many good

clues as to how it functions. "

Haussler's team is now following up on the clues that they do have.

Other DNA regions produce stable RNA structures that have a variety

of functions such as gene regulation or controlling the action of

proteins. Furthermore, the same cells that express the HAR1 genes

also produce a protein called reelin, which helps establish the

architecture of the brain.

According to Haussler, the possibility that the HAR1 regions may play

a role in the function of reelin is especially interesting since

defects in reelin expression have been associated with schizophrenia

and other mental disorders. " We still can't say much about the

function [of the DNA containing HAR1], " said Haussler, " but it's a

very exciting finding because it is expressed in cells that have a

fundamental role in the design and development of the mammalian

cortex. "

And beyond HAR1 lie HAR2, HAR3, and so on through the 49 regions

Pollard identified with her DNA screen. " We've only studied one of

these regions carefully, " said Haussler. " Now we have to go through

the other 48. "

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