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First published online April 20, 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 1602-1606 (2007)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2007
doi: 10.1242/jeb.002402
Review Article |
Comparative environmental genomics in non-model species: using heterologous hybridization to DNA-based microarrays
Department of Biology, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97201, USA
e-mail: bbuckley{at}pdx.edu
Accepted 13 March 2007
| Summary |
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Key words: DNA microarray, comparative environmental genomics, gene expression, heterologous hybridization
| Introduction |
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The lack of available genomic sequence information for species outside the
traditional genetic models is no longer an impediment to using genomic tools
to investigate patterns of gene expression in these organisms. It is becoming
increasingly clear that within related phylogenetic groups, adequate sequence
identity exists for many genes to allow for a genomic platform developed for
one species in the group to be applied to its other members. In the case of
cross-species comparisons of gene expression using DNA-based microarrays
designed for a single species, this approach has been termed `heterologous'
hybridization (Renn et al.,
2004
). In this review, I discuss the recent applications of
heterologous hybridization to DNA microarrays, highlighting its strengths and
weaknesses. Various factors are considered that may affect the efficacy of
this approach, including such variables as the phylogenetic distance between
the species involved, the nature and length of the DNA probes affixed to the
microarray platform and the experimental design employed.
| Measuring gene expression with DNA-based microarrays |
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| The effect of sequence divergence on microarray analyses |
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The competitive hybridization of genomic DNA from multiple species to a
single-species array can be helpful in providing a quantitative assessment of
the impact of sequence divergence on overall hybridization efficiency. For
example, in a study on different species of Drosophila
(Ranz et al., 2003
), genomic
DNA from D. melanogaster displayed an average of 4.2% greater
hybridization to a D. melanogaster array than did genomic DNA from
D. simulans. This disparity in hybridization strength was in broad
agreement with the known sequence divergence between these two species (3.8%
different at the nucleotide level). Especially in cases where the degree of
sequence divergence between two species is not known, the relative binding of
genomic DNA from the two species will provide an idea as to the effect of
evolutionary distance on hybridization efficiency.
The problem of comparative differences in expressed isoforms creating false positives is also likely to increase with evolutionary distance. This is of particular concern for members of large gene families with many isoforms and/or variants of ancestral genes. As species diverge, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern specific patterns of expression in such families where multiple cDNAs may bind to a single probe bearing a conserved region shared by all isoforms or variants.
Owing solely to sequence divergence, the number of features that a
single-species microarray can detect in targets from another species is
expected to decrease with increasing phylogenetic divergence. This appears to
generally hold true, although not to the extent that one might initially
suppose. In a study employing a 16 006-gene salmonid microarray, those
features generated from Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) or rainbow
trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were equally able to detect target cDNAs
from either species, despite the 820 million years of divergence time
between these two species (von Schalburg
et al., 2005
). In another study, Rise et al.
(Rise et al., 2004
) tested the
ability of a 7356-feature cDNA microarray, generated from ESTs from rainbow
trout and Atlantic salmon, to detect target cDNAs from lake whitefish
(Coreogonus clupeaformis) and smelt (Osmerus mordax). As
expected, hybridization performance did rank according to evolutionary
relationships, with the lowest number of features being detected in the most
diverged species (smelt). However, 38% of the Atlantic salmon features on the
microarray detected smelt target cDNAs, compared with 70% of Atlantic salmon
targets. While hybridization performance decreased by approximately half in
smelt, this nevertheless resulted in nearly 2500 features being successfully
detected. In a sense, then, this approach merely reduces the effective size of
a given microarray. With current technology allowing for the dense spotting of
many thousands of features onto glass slides, the detecting power of even a
numerically diminished microarray still remains considerable.
It is important to bear in mind however that `number of detected spots' does not translate into information on changes in expression level. The ability of a given platform to detect changes in gene expression, particularly in poorly detected features, would be expected to diminish with increasing phylogenetic distance as sequence mismatches begin to create variation in hybridization strength, even for features that pass the detection threshold. However, these challenges may be mitigated by the choice of experimental design, as discussed in a later section.
| Short oligonucleotides versus full-length cDNAs |
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1000 bp) were used to
characterize quantitative differences in gene expression among several primate
species. The authors acknowledge the likelihood that sequence differences
between species may have affected the outcome of the experiments using short
oligonucleotide probes. They assert, however, that with the use of longer cDNA
probes, the 0.8% nucleotide sequence difference between human and chimpanzee
was not expected to affect the results significantly and that variation in the
data due to sequence divergence was smaller than that due to experimental
error. By using longer probes and by maintaining high stringency in
hybridization conditions (e.g. keeping hybridization temperature at or close
to 65°C for all hybridizations and using high-stringency washing
procedures), non-specific binding of mismatched targets can be kept to a
minimum.
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| `Apples to apples': the importance of experimental design |
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For very closely related species, this design may nevertheless be effective
and has been used, for example, to explore patterns of gender-biased gene
expression in different species of Drosophila
(Ranz et al., 2003
;
Meiklejohn et al., 2003
).
However, in a study on primates that employed both single- and multi-species
microarrays to directly test the limits of inter-specific competitive
hybridization (Gilad et al.,
2006
), it was demonstrated that the difference in sequence
homology between humans and chimpanzees was sufficient to affect the resulting
gene expression values when target cDNAs from each species were directly
compared first on a human-based microarray and then on a chimpanzee
microarray. Even the use of relatively long cDNA probes apparently did not
eliminate the problem, which was especially significant for instances when the
differences in gene expression between species were subtle (e.g.
12 fold).
The use of an alternative experimental design (Fig. 1B) avoids the problem of phylogenetic distance between the two samples being competitively hybridized by always comparing two different samples from the same species (i.e. comparing `apples to apples' rather than `apples to oranges'). With this design, there is only a single divergence factor to consider (species 1 vs 2; Fig. 1B) and it applies equally to both samples, allowing for accurate measurements of their relative levels of specific mRNAs. The two samples could differ in any experimental variable, such as treatment, time point, collection site, developmental stage or tissue.
This design was recently used to demonstrate the efficacy of heterologous
hybridization in measuring biologically meaningful differences in gene
expression for several species of fish, using a
4500-feature cDNA
microarray that was generated from brain tissue of an African cichlid,
Astatotilapia burtoni (Renn et
al., 2004
). Target cDNA samples from brain and mixed muscle from
this species were competitively hybridized against one another on the
microarray to establish a set of 804 `reference' genes that were expressed
differentially between these two tissues. Subsequently, similar hybridizations
were performed comparing muscle and brain samples from seven other fish
species. These species included three other members of the order Perciformes,
as well as more distantly related species, such as the zebrafish Danio
rerio (diverged from A. burtoni by
200 million years). As
expected, the total number of features detected decreased with phylogenetic
distance, although the decrease was surprisingly moderate. In even the most
diverged species, Renn et al. found that 30004000 spots out of 4500
were detected by the A. burtoni microarray. Hybridization efficiency
was particularly high among the perciform fishes, even though this order spans
over 65 million years of divergence time.
Another important finding of this study was that, of the 804 reference
spots whose expression differed between tissues in A. burtoni, nearly
80% also differed in the other perciform species. This number did decrease
significantly, however, in comparisons of more highly diverged species. For
instance, only
20% of the reference spots displayed changes in expression
in zebrafish, the most phylogenetically distant species examined. This
underscores the inverse relationship between sequence divergence and the
conservation of gene regulatory patterns, even for features that are well
detected by a given array. Nevertheless, these results support the ability of
heterologous hybridization to reveal conserved patterns of biologically
relevant gene expression across considerable taxonomic spans such as those
encompassing the perciform fishes.
In my laboratory, similar success has been achieved using a 9200-feature
cDNA microarray generated from ESTs from the eurythermal goby Gillichthys
mirabilis to characterize the responses to heat stress in the
cold-adapted (and evolutionarily distant) fish species of the Antarctic
(B.A.B., unpublished data). In keeping with the findings above, the number of
spots detected using heterologous targets tends to decline with evolutionary
distance, but not significantly. Interestingly, the fold-changes in expression
measured in the heterologous hybridizations were lower than those measured in
hybridizations using the homologous targets [a similar phenomenon was observed
among fish species by Renn et al. (Renn et
al., 2004
)]. Whether this represents a reduced ability of the
Antarctic fish to up- and down-regulate gene expression or is an artifact of
heterologous hybridization remains to be determined.
| Conclusions |
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| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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