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The evolution of lncRNA repertoires and expression patterns in tetrapods

Nature volume 505, pages 635–640 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Only a very small fraction of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are well characterized. The evolutionary history of lncRNAs can provide insights into their functionality, but the absence of lncRNA annotations in non-model organisms has precluded comparative analyses. Here we present a large-scale evolutionary study of lncRNA repertoires and expression patterns, in 11 tetrapod species. We identify approximately 11,000 primate-specific lncRNAs and 2,500 highly conserved lncRNAs, including approximately 400 genes that are likely to have originated more than 300 million years ago. We find that lncRNAs, in particular ancient ones, are in general actively regulated and may function predominantly in embryonic development. Most lncRNAs evolve rapidly in terms of sequence and expression levels, but tissue specificities are often conserved. We compared expression patterns of homologous lncRNA and protein-coding families across tetrapods to reconstruct an evolutionarily conserved co-expression network. This network suggests potential functions for lncRNAs in fundamental processes such as spermatogenesis and synaptic transmission, but also in more specific mechanisms such as placenta development through microRNA production.

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Figure 1: Evolutionary age and genomic characteristics of lncRNA families.
Figure 2: lncRNA expression patterns and evidence for developmental regulation of old lncRNAs.
Figure 3: Evolution of lncRNA expression patterns in tetrapods.
Figure 4: Evolutionary conserved co-expression network of protein-coding genes and lncRNAs.
Figure 5: H19 co-expression network and miRNA precursors.

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Gene Expression Omnibus

Sequence Read Archive

Data deposits

The sequencing data have been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (accession GSE43520) and SRA (PRJNA186438 and PRJNA202404).

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Froidevaux and D. Cortéz for help with genome sequencing, J. Meunier for help with preliminary miRNA analyses, K. Harshman and the Lausanne Genomics Technology Facility for high-throughput sequencing support, I. Xenarios for computational support, S. Bergmann and Z. Kutalik for advice on co-expression analyses. Human embryonic and fetal material was provided by the Joint MRC/Wellcome Trust (grant 099175/Z/12/Z) Human Developmental Biology Resource (http://www.hdbr.org). The computations were performed at the Vital-IT (http://www.vital-it.ch) Center for high-performance computing of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. This research was supported by grants from the European Research Council (Starting Independent Researcher Grant 242597, SexGenTransEvolution) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 31003A_130287) to H.K. A.N. was supported by a FEBS long-term postdoctoral fellowship.

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Author notes

  1. Anamaria Necsulea & Magali Soumillon

    Present address: Present addresses: Laboratory of Developmental Genomics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland (A.N.); Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA, and Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA (M.S.).,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

    Anamaria Necsulea, Magali Soumillon, Maria Warnefors, Angélica Liechti & Henrik Kaessmann

  2. Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

    Anamaria Necsulea, Magali Soumillon, Maria Warnefors, Angélica Liechti & Henrik Kaessmann

  3. The Robinson Institute, School of Molecular and Biomedical Science, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia,

    Tasman Daish & Frank Grützner

  4. Department of Systematic Zoology, Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt University Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany

    Ulrich Zeller

  5. Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA,

    Julie C. Baker

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Contributions

A.N. conceived and performed all biological analyses and wrote the manuscript, with input from all authors. A.N. and M.W. processed RNA-seq data. M.S. and A.L. generated RNA-seq data. T.D. and F.G. collected platypus samples. U.Z. collected opossum samples. J.C.B. provided mouse placenta samples and contributed to H19X analyses. The project was supervised and originally designed by H.K.

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Correspondence to Anamaria Necsulea or Henrik Kaessmann.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 lncRNA evolutionary age and sequence conservation patterns.

a, Exonic sequence conservation (mean placental PhastCons score), for random intergenic regions, lncRNA maximum evolutionary age classes, coding and untranslated exons of protein-coding genes. b, Mean DAF of autosomal non-CpG SNPs segregating in African populations (1000 Genomes project26). Intergenic SNPs were randomly drawn in regions matching lncRNA recombination rates (Methods). c, Mean DAF for the four classes of mutation orientation (W to S (W→S) or AT to GC; S to W (S→W) or GC to AT; W to W (W→W), or AT to AT; and S to S (S→S), or GC to GC) for autosomal non-CpG SNPs found in primate-specific (age 25 Myr) lncRNA exonic regions (blue) or in intergenic regions with matching recombination rates (grey). The W→S and S→W mutation classes are known to be affected by GC-biased gene conversion. d, Same as c but for lncRNAs that are found close to (left panel, maximum distance 10 kb) or far from (right panel, minimum distance 50 kb) Ensembl-annotated coding or noncoding genes. e, Mean placental PhastCons score for promoter regions (1 kb upstream) of lncRNA minimum evolutionary age classes (beige) and protein-coding genes (blue). f, Mean placental PhastCons score for promoter regions (1 kb upstream) of lncRNA maximum evolutionary age classes (beige) and protein-coding genes (blue). Error bars, 95% confidence intervals based on 100 bootstrap resampling replicates.

Extended Data Figure 2 lncRNA expression patterns in four tetrapod species.

a, Proportions of genes with observed maximum expression in different organs for mouse protein-coding genes, old lncRNAs (shared across at least two species) and young lncRNAs (species-specific). b, Tissue-specificity index, for the same classes of mouse genes. Values close to 1 represent high tissue specificity. c, Distribution of the maximum expression level (log2-transformed RPKM). d–f, Same as a–c but for the opossum. g–i, Same as a–c but for the platypus. j–l, Same as a–c but for the chicken.

Extended Data Figure 3 Transcription-factor binding at lncRNA promoters.

a, Comparison between the frequencies of in silico-predicted transcription-factor (TF)-binding sites in lncRNA promoters (2 kb upstream) and in random intergenic regions. b, Comparison between the frequencies of in silico-predicted TF-binding sites in lncRNA and protein-coding gene promoters (2 kb upstream). Homeobox TFs are shown in blue. c, Comparison between the frequencies of experimentally determined (ChIP-seq ENCODE) TF-binding sites in lncRNA promoters (2 kb upstream) and in random intergenic regions. d, Comparison between the frequencies of experimentally determined (ChIP-seq ENCODE) predicted TF-binding sites in lncRNA and protein-coding gene promoters (2 kb upstream). e, Frequency of binding (Encode ChIP-seq data) for OCT4 (also known as POU5F1). f, g, Proportion of HNF4A- CEBPA-binding events shared between human and mouse, for random intergenic regions, lncRNA (321 lncRNAs with binding events and liver expression, supported by CAGE data) and protein-coding gene promoters (5 kb upstream).

Extended Data Figure 4 Evolution of lncRNA expression patterns.

a, Percentage of human lncRNAs (found in antisense of protein-coding genes) that have transcription evidence in other species, as a function of the divergence time. Transcription evidence was assessed in a pool of brain and testes strand-specific RNA-seq data, for 2,535 human antisense lncRNAs that had 1–1 orthologues in at least one other species and transcription evidence in human (Methods). b, Spearman correlation of human and mouse expression levels, in different tissues. The boxplots represent the variation observed in 100 bootstrap replicates. c, Proportion of human organ-specific protein-coding genes (tissue-specificity index >0.9, RPKM >0.1) for which the organ specificity is shared across primates. Red lines, random expectation of shared organ specificity; horizontal black line, average conserved specificity for all organs. d, Proportion of human organ-specific lncRNAs (minimum evolutionary age >90 Myr, tissue-specificity index >0.9, RPKM >0.1) for which the organ specificity is shared across eutherians. Red lines, random expectation of shared organ specificity; horizontal black line, average conserved specificity for all organs. e, Same as c, conservation across eutherian species. f, Principal component analysis of lncRNA expression levels for families of eutherian 1–1 orthologues. g, Principal component analysis of protein-coding gene expression levels for families of eutherian 1–1 orthologues.

Extended Data Figure 5 Characteristics of the evolutionarily conserved co-expression network.

a, Proportion of activation/inhibition relationships annotated in the String database, for positive and negative co-expression network connections. b, Gene expression levels (maximum over all available sample and species for each co-expression network node) for different network connectivity classes. c, Gene expression levels (maximum over all available sample and species for each co-expression network node) for connected lncRNAs, transcription factors (TFs) and non-TF protein-coding genes. d, Network connectivity (node degree) for lncRNAs (black), transcription factors (medium grey) and for non-transcription factors protein-coding genes (light grey). Top, raw data; bottom, after correcting for expression level differences. e, Difference between observed and expected proportions of connections in cis, for lncRNAs (red), protein-coding genes (blue) and for genes found in HOX clusters (black). The expected proportions were computed through randomizations (Methods).

Extended Data Figure 6 Expression patterns and sequence evolution of H19X-associated miRNAs.

a, Distribution of the average embedded miRNA density (miRNA hairpins per kb, in the gene body or 10 kb downstream), for genes that are positively connected with each network node. Red arrow, average miRNA density for genes that are positively connected with H19. b, Maximum likelihood reconstruction of the phylogeny of the ancient H19X-associated miRNA family (representative members miR-503, miR-322, miR-424, miR-15c, miR-16c). miRNAs associated with H19X are displayed in red (subfamily containing miR-503 and miR-16c) and blue (subfamily containing miR-424, miR-322 and miR-15c). miRNA names are derived from miRBase where available, including three-letter species abbreviations. Hsa, Homo sapiens; Mdo, Monodelphis domestica (opossum); Mml, Macaca mulatta (macaque); Mmu, Mus musculus (mouse); Oan, Ornithorhynchus anatinus (platypus); Gga, Gallus gallus (chicken), Xtr, Xenopus tropicalis. Ensembl identifiers are given for two opossum miRNAs. c, Expression pattern of the mouse miRNA mmu-miR-322, associated with H19X. The expression level was computed as the number of uniquely mapping reads per miRNA, after resampling the same number of reads per tissue. d, Same as c but for the mouse miRNA mmu-miR-351.

Extended Data Table 1 Validation of the de novo detection and classification methods
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 LncRNA repertoires in 11 tetrapod species
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 LncRNA evolutionary age estimates and synteny conservation
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains the Supplementary Discussion, Supplementary Methods and additional references. (PDF 359 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

This Supplementary Table contains information for the RNA-seq samples used in this study. (XLSX 76 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Node and edge identifiers for the co-expression network. (XLSX 15528 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

This Supplementary Table contains the list of protein-coding genes, which have an excess of connections in cis in the co-expression network. (XLSX 181 kb)

Supplementary Table 4

MCL clusters determined for the co-expression network and the GO enrichment results for each cluster. (XLSX 263 kb)

Supplementary Tables 5 and 6

This zipped file contains Supplementary Tables 5 and 6. Supplementary Table 5 shows results of the GO enrichment analysis for each lncRNA node in the co-expression network and Supplementary Table 6 contains the list of miRNAs associated with H19X in each species. (ZIP 4765 kb)

Supplementary Data 1

This Supplementary Dataset contains the lncRNA annotations used in this study. (ZIP 20104 kb)

Supplementary Data 2

This Supplementary Dataset contains information for homologous lncRNA families. (ZIP 24012 kb)

Supplementary Data 3

This Supplementary Dataset contains expression level estimates for lncRNAs and for Ensembl-annotated protein-coding genes. (ZIP 25470 kb)

Supplementary Data 4

This Supplementary Dataset contains miRNA expression values for 5 species. (ZIP 21311 kb)

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Necsulea, A., Soumillon, M., Warnefors, M. et al. The evolution of lncRNA repertoires and expression patterns in tetrapods. Nature 505, 635–640 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12943

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