The Human Accelerated Region HAR202 Controls NPAS3 Expression in the Developing Forebrain Displaying Differential Enhancer Activity Between Modern and Archaic Human Sequences.

ABSTRACT: It has been proposed that the phenotypic differences in cognitive abilities between humans and our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, are largely due to changes in the regulation of neurodevelopmental genes. We have previously found that the neurodevelopmental transcription factor gene NPAS3 accumulates the largest number of human accelerated regions (HARs), suggesting it may play some role in the phenotypic evolution of the human nervous system. In this work, we performed a comparative functional analysis of NPAS3-HAR202 using enhancer reporter assays in transgenic zebrafish and mice. We found that the Homo sapiens HAR202 ortholog failed to drive reporter expression to the zebrafish nervous system, in high contrast to the strong expression displayed by the rest of the vertebrate ortho

SUBMITTER: Caporale AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11461159 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature