Pan-cancer surveys indicate cell cycle-related roles of primate-specific genes in tumors and embryonic cerebrum

Autor: Chenyu Ma, Chunyan Li, Huijing Ma, Daqi Yu, Yufei Zhang, Dan Zhang, Tianhan Su, Jianmin Wu, Xiaoyue Wang, Li Zhang, Chun-Long Chen, Yong E. Zhang
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Genome Biology, Vol 23, Iss 1, Pp 1-29 (2022)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1474-760X
DOI: 10.1186/s13059-022-02821-9
Popis: Abstract Background Despite having been extensively studied, it remains largely unclear why humans bear a particularly high risk of cancer. The antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis predicts that primate-specific genes (PSGs) tend to promote tumorigenesis, while the molecular atavism hypothesis predicts that PSGs involved in tumors may represent recently derived duplicates of unicellular genes. However, these predictions have not been tested. Results By taking advantage of pan-cancer genomic data, we find the upregulation of PSGs across 13 cancer types, which is facilitated by copy-number gain and promoter hypomethylation. Meta-analyses indicate that upregulated PSGs (uPSGs) tend to promote tumorigenesis and to play cell cycle-related roles. The cell cycle-related uPSGs predominantly represent derived duplicates of unicellular genes. We prioritize 15 uPSGs and perform an in-depth analysis of one unicellular gene-derived duplicate involved in the cell cycle, DDX11. Genome-wide screening data and knockdown experiments demonstrate that DDX11 is broadly essential across cancer cell lines. Importantly, non-neutral amino acid substitution patterns and increased expression indicate that DDX11 has been under positive selection. Finally, we find that cell cycle-related uPSGs are also preferentially upregulated in the highly proliferative embryonic cerebrum. Conclusions Consistent with the predictions of the atavism and antagonistic pleiotropy hypotheses, primate-specific genes, especially those PSGs derived from cell cycle-related genes that emerged in unicellular ancestors, contribute to the early proliferation of the human cerebrum at the cost of hitchhiking by similarly highly proliferative cancer cells.
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