English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

An important capacity of genes is the rapid change of expression levels to cope with the environment, known as expression responsiveness or plasticity. Elucidating the genomic mechanisms determining expression plasticity is critical for understanding the molecular basis of phenotypic plasticity, fitness and adaptation. In this study, we systematically quantified gene expression plasticity in four metazoan species by integrating changes of expression levels under a large number of genetic and environmental conditions. From this, we demonstrated that expression plasticity measures a distinct feature of gene expression that is orthogonal to other well-studied features, including gene expression level and tissue specificity/broadness. Expression plasticity is conserved across species with important physiological implications. The magnitude of expression plasticity is highly correlated with gene function and genes with high plasticity are implicated in disease susceptibility. Genome-wide analysis identified many conserved promoter  cis -elements,  trans -acting factors (such as CTCF), and gene body histone modifications (H3K36me3, H3K79me2 and H4K20me1) that are significantly associated with expression plasticity. Analysis of expression changes in perturbation experiments further validated a causal role of specific transcription factors and histone modifications. Collectively, this work reveals the general properties, physiological implications and multivariable regulation of gene expression plasticity in metazoans, extending the mechanistic understanding of gene regulation.

Multivariable regulation of gene expression plasticity in metazoans