IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v4y2013i1d10.1038_ncomms3771.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Widespread sex differences in gene expression and splicing in the adult human brain

Author

Listed:
  • Daniah Trabzuni

    (Reta Lilla Weston Laboratories, UCL Institute of Neurology
    King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre)

  • Adaikalavan Ramasamy

    (King’s College London, Guy’s Hospital)

  • Sabaena Imran

    (Reta Lilla Weston Laboratories, UCL Institute of Neurology)

  • Robert Walker

    (MRC Sudden Death Brain Bank Project, University of Edinburgh)

  • Colin Smith

    (MRC Sudden Death Brain Bank Project, University of Edinburgh)

  • Michael E. Weale

    (King’s College London, Guy’s Hospital)

  • John Hardy

    (Reta Lilla Weston Laboratories, UCL Institute of Neurology)

  • Mina Ryten

    (Reta Lilla Weston Laboratories, UCL Institute of Neurology
    King’s College London, Guy’s Hospital)

Abstract

There is strong evidence to show that men and women differ in terms of neurodevelopment, neurochemistry and susceptibility to neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disease. The molecular basis of these differences remains unclear. Progress in this field has been hampered by the lack of genome-wide information on sex differences in gene expression and in particular splicing in the human brain. Here we address this issue by using post-mortem adult human brain and spinal cord samples originating from 137 neuropathologically confirmed control individuals to study whole-genome gene expression and splicing in 12 CNS regions. We show that sex differences in gene expression and splicing are widespread in adult human brain, being detectable in all major brain regions and involving 2.5% of all expressed genes. We give examples of genes where sex-biased expression is both disease-relevant and likely to have functional consequences, and provide evidence suggesting that sex biases in expression may reflect sex-biased gene regulatory structures.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniah Trabzuni & Adaikalavan Ramasamy & Sabaena Imran & Robert Walker & Colin Smith & Michael E. Weale & John Hardy & Mina Ryten, 2013. "Widespread sex differences in gene expression and splicing in the adult human brain," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3771
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3771
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3771
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms3771?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Masato Tsuji & Takanori Kawasaki & Takeru Matsuda & Tomio Arai & Satoshi Gojo & Jun K Takeuchi, 2017. "Sexual dimorphisms of mRNA and miRNA in human/murine heart disease," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Kynon J. M. Benjamin & Ria Arora & Arthur S. Feltrin & Geo Pertea & Hunter H. Giles & Joshua M. Stolz & Laura D’Ignazio & Leonardo Collado-Torres & Joo Heon Shin & William S. Ulrich & Thomas M. Hyde &, 2024. "Sex affects transcriptional associations with schizophrenia across the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and caudate nucleus," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Chloé Hérault & Thomas Pihl & Bruno Hudry, 2024. "Cellular sex throughout the organism underlies somatic sexual differentiation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3771. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.