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Nature Genetics volume 43, pages 1171–1172 (2011)Cite this article

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He et al. reply:

It was reported2,3 based on microarray expression data that X:AA was ∼1, consistent with Ohno's hypothesis. We recently showed that using a superior gene expression quantification method, RNA-seq, the X:AA expression ratio is estimated to be near 0.5, thereby rejecting Ohno's hypothesis4. A number of groups have asserted that our analysis was confounded by a higher fraction of inactive genes on the X chromosome relative to the autosomes5,6,7,8. These authors are convinced that Ohno's hypothesis is correct because the X:AA ratio is ∼1 when only actively expressed genes are considered. We, however, believe that when testing Ohno's hypothesis, it is critical to include comparable sets of genes from the X chromosome and the autosomes.

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Figure 1: Reanalysis of human gene expression data from comparable sets of active genes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol and College of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Xionglei He, Xiaoshu Chen, Yuanyan Xiong, Zhidong Chen, Xunzhang Wang & Suhua Shi

  2. School of Mathematics and Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Xueqin Wang

  3. Zhongshan Medical School, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Xueqin Wang

  4. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Jianzhi Zhang

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  1. Xionglei He
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Correspondence to Xionglei He or Jianzhi Zhang.

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He, X., Chen, X., Xiong, Y. et al. He et al. reply. Nat Genet 43, 1171–1172 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.1010

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