A new take on expression | Nature Reviews Genetics

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Natural variation in gene expression is widespread. Realizing that herein lies the key to the inter-individual phenotypic variation,

including susceptibility to complex diseases, the authors set out to see how amenable this variation would be to genetic study. First, they used microarrays to identify the variable loci. To

do this, they measured differences in the expression of ∼8,500 human genes from immortalized B cells, and selected the 3,554 most variable genes for subsequent mapping. Second, they used a

computer program called SAGE to carry out genome-wide linkage analysis in 14 families from the CEPH (Centre d'Étude du Polymorphisme Humain) panel, which was also the source of the

expression data. Using two stringency criteria (genome-wide _p_ = 0.001 and 0.05), they detected linkage for 142 and 984 expression phenotypes, respectively. The regions that are linked to

the expression phenotypes — the regulators — can be in _cis_ (according to the authors' criteria, these have to lie within 5 Mb of the target gene) or in _trans_. Although most target

genes are associated with regulators in _trans_, few have multiple regulators. The authors point out that rather than reflecting a biological phenomenon, this result might simply be due to

the difficulty in detecting multiple regulators, as each of them would have only a weak effect on its target. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS

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institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER * Morley, M. & Molony, C. M. et al. Genetic analysis of genome-wide variation in human gene

expression. _Nature_ 21 July 2004 (doi:10.1038/nature02797) Download references Authors * Magdalena Skipper View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar RELATED LINKS RELATED LINKS WEB SITE Vivian Cheung's laboratory RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Skipper, M. A new take on

expression. _Nat Rev Genet_ 5, 637 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1434 Download citation * Issue Date: 01 September 2004 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1434 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone

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