Heritability and Tissue Specificity of Gene Expression Regulation in Rats

Sample size: 30 publication 10 minutes Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Enrico Petretto, Jonathan Mangion, Nicholas J Dickens, Stuart A Cook, Mande K Kumaran, Han Lu, Judith Fischer, Henrike Maatz, Vladimir Kren, Michal Pravenec, Norbert Hubner, Timothy J Aitman

Primary Institution: Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom

Hypothesis

How do heritability and allelic effects influence the detection of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) in a tissue-specific context?

Conclusion

The study found that cis-acting eQTLs are more heritable and easier to detect than trans-eQTLs, and that using heritability as a filter can reduce the discovery of trans-eQTLs.

Supporting Evidence

Cis-acting eQTLs were found to be highly heritable and easier to detect than trans-eQTLs.
Only 3% of eQTLs exhibited large allelic effects, suggesting a polygenic control of gene expression.
The study identified several hundred major eQTLs in each tissue analyzed.

Takeaway

This study looked at how genes behave in different tissues of rats and found that some genes are more influenced by their genetic makeup than others, especially in certain tissues.