REforge Associates Transcription Factor Binding Site Divergence in Regulatory Elements with Phenotypic Differences between Species.

ABSTRACT: Elucidating the genomic determinants of morphological differences between species is key to understanding how morphological diversity evolved. While differences in cis-regulatory elements are an important genetic source for morphological evolution, it remains challenging to identify regulatory elements involved in phenotypic differences. Here, we present Regulatory Element forward genomics (REforge), a computational approach that detects associations between transcription factor binding site divergence in putative regulatory elements and phenotypic differences between species. By simulating regulatory element evolution in silico, we show that this approach has substantial power to detect such associations. To validate REforge on real data, we used known binding motifs for eye-related trans

SUBMITTER: Langer BE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6278867 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature