Inverted expression profiles of sex-biased genes in response to toxicant perturbations and diseases
- Authors
- Ung, C.Y., Lam, S.H., Zhang, X., Li, H., Zhang, L., Li, B., and Gong, Z.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-130322-15
- Date
- 2013
- Source
- PLoS One 8(2): e56668 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Gong, Zhiyuan, Lam, Siew Hong
- Keywords
- none
- Datasets
- GEO:GSE41622, GEO:GSE41623
- MeSH Terms
-
- Gene Expression Profiling*
- Animals
- Zebrafish/genetics*
- Zebrafish/physiology*
- Male
- Female
- Toxicogenetics*
- Disease/genetics*
- Humans
- Sex Characteristics*
- Chromosomes, Human/drug effects
- Chromosomes, Human/genetics
- Genetic Predisposition to Disease/genetics
- PubMed
- 23457601 Full text @ PLoS One
The influence of sex factor is widely recognized in various diseases, but its molecular basis, particularly how sex-biased genes, those with sexually dimorphic expression, behave in response to toxico-pathological changes is poorly understood. In this study, zebrafish toxicogenomic data and transcriptomic data from human pathological studies were analysed for the responses of male- and female-biased genes. Our analyses revealed obvious inverted expression profiles of sex-biased genes, where affected males tended to up-regulate genes of female-biased expression and down-regulate genes of male-biased expression, and vice versa in affected females, in a broad range of toxico-pathological conditions. Intriguingly, the extent of these inverted profiles correlated well to the susceptibility or severity of a given toxico-pathological state, suggesting that inverted expression profiles of sex-biased genes observed in this study can be used as important indicators to assess biological disorders.