Characteristics of allelic gene expression in human brain cells from single-cell RNA-seq data analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Monoallelic expression of autosomal genes has been implicated in human psychiatric disorders. However, there is a paucity of allelic expression studies in human brain cells at the single cell and genome wide levels.

Results

In this report, we reanalyzed a previously published single-cell RNA-seq dataset from several postmortem human brains and observed pervasive monoallelic expression in individual cells, largely in a random manner. Examining single nucleotide variants with a predicted functional disruption, we found that the "damaged" alleles were overall expressed in fewer brain cells than their counterparts, and at a lower level in cells where their expression was detected. We also identified many brain cell type-specific monoallelically expressed genes. Intere

SUBMITTER: Zhao D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5681780 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature