Silencing of transposable elements may not be a major driver of regulatory evolution in primate iPSCs

Michelle C. Ward, Siming Zhao, Kaixuan Luo, Bryan J. Pavlovic, Mohammad M. Karimi, Matthew Stephens, Yoav Gilad

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Transposable elements (TEs) comprise almost half of primate genomes and their aberrant regulation can result in deleterious effects. In pluripotent stem cells, rapidly evolving KRAB-ZNF genes target TEs for silencing by H3K9me3. To investigate the evolution of TE silencing, we performed H3K9me3 ChIP-seq experiments in induced pluripotent stem cells from 10 human and 7 chimpanzee individuals. We identified four million orthologous TEs and found the SVA and ERV families to be marked most frequently by H3K9me3. We found little evidence of inter-species differences in TE silencing, with as many as 82% of putatively silenced TEs marked at similar levels in humans and chimpanzees. TEs that are preferentially silenced in one species are a similar age to those silenced in both species and are not more likely to be associated with expression divergence of nearby orthologous genes. Our data suggest limited species-specificity of TE silencing across 6 million years of primate evolution.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere33084
JournaleLife
Volume7
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 12 2018
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Immunology and Microbiology

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