Tracing the Evolution of Human Gene Regulation and Its Association with Shifts in Environment.

ABSTRACT: As humans populated the world, they adapted to many varying environmental factors, including climate, diet, and pathogens. Because many of these adaptations were mediated by multiple noncoding variants with small effects on gene regulation, it has been difficult to link genomic signals of selection to specific genes, and to describe the regulatory response to selection. To overcome this challenge, we adapted PrediXcan, a machine learning method for imputing gene regulation from genotype data, to analyze low-coverage ancient human DNA (aDNA). First, we used simulated genomes to benchmark strategies for adapting PrediXcan to increase robustness to incomplete data. Applying the resulting models to 490 ancient Eurasians, we found that genes with the strongest divergent regulation among ancient

SUBMITTER: Colbran LL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8576593 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature