Identification of cis- and trans-regulatory variation modulating microRNA expression levels in human fibroblasts.
Genome Res, 2011/1;21(1):68-73.
Borel C[1], Deutsch S, Letourneau A, Migliavacca E, Montgomery SB, Dimas AS, Vejnar CE, Attar H, Gagnebin M, Gehrig C, Falconnet E, Dupré Y, Dermitzakis ET, Antonarakis SE
Affiliations
PMID: 21147911DOI: 10.1101/gr.109371.110
Impact factor: 9.438
Abstract
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are regulatory noncoding RNAs that affect the production of a significant fraction of human mRNAs via post-transcriptional regulation. Interindividual variation of the miRNA expression levels is likely to influence the expression of miRNA target genes and may therefore contribute to phenotypic differences in humans, including susceptibility to common disorders. The extent to which miRNA levels are genetically controlled is largely unknown. In this report, we assayed the expression levels of miRNAs in primary fibroblasts from 180 European newborns of the GenCord project and performed association analysis to identify eQTLs (expression quantitative traits loci). We detected robust expression for 121 miRNAs out of 365 interrogated. We have identified significant cis- (10%) and trans- (11%) eQTLs. Furthermore, we detected one genomic locus (rs1522653) that influences the expression levels of five miRNAs, thus unraveling a novel mechanism for coregulation of miRNA expression.
MeSH terms
Cell Line; Enhancer Elements, Genetic; Europe; Fibroblasts; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation; Genetic Variation; Genome-Wide Association Study; Humans; Infant, Newborn; MicroRNAs; Quantitative Trait Loci; RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional
More resources
Full text:
Europe PubMed Central; PubMed Central
EndNote: Download