Sex Differences in Gene Expression and Regulatory Networks across 29 Human Tissues.

ABSTRACT: Sex differences manifest in many diseases and may drive sex-specific therapeutic responses. To understand the molecular basis of sex differences, we evaluated sex-biased gene regulation by constructing sample-specific gene regulatory networks in 29 human healthy tissues using 8,279 whole-genome expression profiles from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. We find sex-biased regulatory network structures in each tissue. Even though most transcription factors (TFs) are not differentially expressed between males and females, many have sex-biased regulatory targeting patterns. In each tissue, genes that are differentially targeted by TFs between the sexes are enriched for tissue-related functions and diseases. In brain tissue, for example, genes associated with Parkinson's disease an

SUBMITTER: Lopes-Ramos CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7898458 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature