Human and chimpanzee gene expression differences replicated in mice fed different diets.

Full Abstract

Although the human diet is markedly different from the diets of closely related primate species, the influence of diet on phenotypic and genetic differences between humans and other primates is unknown. In this study, we analyzed gene expression in laboratory mice fed diets typical of humans and of chimpanzees. The effects of human diets were found to be significantly different from that of a chimpanzee diet in the mouse liver, but not in the brain. Importantly, 10% of the genes that differ in their expression between humans and chimpanzee livers differed also between the livers of mice fed the human and chimpanzee diets. Furthermore, both the promoter sequences and the amino acid sequences of these diet-related genes carry more differences between humans and chimpanzees than random genes. Our results suggest that the mouse can be used to study at least some aspects of human-specific traits.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Somel, Mehmet (M); Creely, Hilliary (H); Franz, Henriette (H); Mueller, Uwe (U); Lachmann, Michael (M); Khaitovich, Philipp (P); Pääbo, Svante (S);

Affiliation: Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. somel@eva.mpg.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: PLoS ONE (PLoS ONE), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-; vol 3 (issue 1) : pp e1504

Dates: Created 2008/01/30; Completed 2008/08/08;

PMID: 18231591, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Animals
Brain - metabolism
Diet
Female
Gene Expression Regulation
Humans - genetics

Humans - genetics
Liver - metabolism
Mice
Nucleic Acid Hybridization
Pan troglodytes - genetics
Promoter Regions (Genetics)

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.