美国的科研人员识别了一个与人类肾脏老化相关的基因。
这项研究结果发布在10月16日的PLoS Genetics上。研究人员联合使用了序列转录谱（sequential transcriptional profiling）和eQTL分析（eQTL mapping），他们表示这项技术能够用于其他任何类型的遗传学识别研究。
该研究是由Stuart Kim博士主持的，据他介绍，这是首次使用基因组转录谱对肾脏组织中630个候选基因进行筛选，一共选出了其中的101个与老化相关的基因。接下来他们对两个群体的101个基因进行了相关的肾脏老化检测。结果发现一个编码细胞外基质蛋白（extracellular matrix protein）MMP20的基因与肾脏老化显著相关。
由于这项关于肾脏老化的分析研究是在两个群体中进行的，所以研究人员强调还需要在其他不同的人群中进行重复试验。随着更多的老化相关的基因发现，某些特定的遗传变异在未来可能用于预测肾脏的老化轨迹。（生物谷Bioon.com）
相关新闻：
Developmental Cell：肾脏发育的基因表达图谱
Nature：肾脏起源于昆虫？
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PLoS Genet 5(10): e1000692. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000692
Expression Quantitative Trait Loci Are Highly Sensitive to Cellular Differentiation State
Alice Gerrits1#, Yang Li2#, Bruno M. Tesson2#, Leonid V. Bystrykh1, Ellen Weersing1, Albertina Ausema1, Bert Dontje1, Xusheng Wang3,4, Rainer Breitling2, Ritsert C. Jansen2*, Gerald de Haan1*
1 Department of Cell Biology, Section Stem Cell Biology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, 2 Groningen Bioinformatics Centre, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Haren, The Netherlands, 3 Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America, 4 Institute of Bioinformatics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Genetical genomics is a strategy for mapping gene expression variation to expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs). We performed a genetical genomics experiment in four functionally distinct but developmentally closely related hematopoietic cell populations isolated from the BXD panel of recombinant inbred mouse strains. This analysis allowed us to analyze eQTL robustness/sensitivity across different cellular differentiation states. Although we identified a large number (365) of “static” eQTLs that were consistently active in all four cell types, we found a much larger number (1,283) of “dynamic” eQTLs showing cell-type–dependence. Of these, 140, 45, 531, and 295 were preferentially active in stem, progenitor, erythroid, and myeloid cells, respectively. A detailed investigation of those dynamic eQTLs showed that in many cases the eQTL specificity was associated with expression changes in the target gene. We found no evidence for target genes that were regulated by distinct eQTLs in different cell types, suggesting that large-scale changes within functional regulatory networks are uncommon. Our results demonstrate that heritable differences in gene expression are highly sensitive to the developmental stage of the cell population under study. Therefore, future genetical genomics studies should aim at studying multiple well-defined and highly purified cell types in order to construct as comprehensive a picture of the changing functional regulatory relationships as possible.
