Study Suggests Piwi-Interacting RNAs Expanded Rapidly in Mammals

April 07, 2009

By Andrea Anderson

Based on comparisons between piRNA clusters in mouse, rat, and other mammalian genomes, University of Michigan researchers found evidence that piRNAs are likely under positive selection and capable of rapid expansion.

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Chromosome-Scale Selective Sweeps and Genomic Diversity in C. elegans
Andersen, Gerke et al., Nature Genetics
Researchers at Princeton University and elsewhere discuss the effects of chromosome-scale selective sweeps on genomic diversity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Taking a high-throughput selective sequencing approach on a collection of 200 wild C. elegans strains, the team found that the nematode's "genome variation is dominated by a set of commonly shared haplotypes on four of its six chromosomes, each spanning many megabases." Further, the team reports on its population genetic modeling experiments, which showed that "this pattern was generated by chromosome-scale selective sweeps that have reduced variation worldwide; at least one of these sweeps probably occurred in the last few hundred years," it writes.

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Gaffney, Veyrieras et al., Genome Biology
A team led by investigators at the University of Chicago this week report their use of a "Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate the enrichment of eQTLs [expression quantitative trait loci] in a wide variety of regulatory annotations" derived from 1,000 Genomes Project data. "We find that [approximately] 40 percent of eQTLs occur in open chromatin, and that they are particularly enriched in transcription factor binding sites, suggesting that many directly impact protein-DNA interactions," the authors write.
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Study Suggests Piwi-Interacting RNAs Expanded Rapidly in Mammals

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