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In collaboration with Geoff Morris, Supriya Kadam, and Wen-Hsiung Li
Expressed but untranslated regions (UTRs) of mRNA transcripts are now known to participate in gene regulation and represent an important source of regulatory novelty. Using a tiling microarray assay of genome-wide expression levels, we have identified length variation of UTRs among different stress conditions in three strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. UTRs have similar levels of expression conservation as coding regions. Evolution of UTRs between strains may contribute to the evolution of stress response, as change in UTR lengths is associated with change in gene expression levels.
Example: Tiling array data showing expression of Npt1 during heat shock in three strains of yeast. 5’ UTR lengths differ between the strains.
Ongoing and future work:
-Experimentally assess how differences in UTRs between conditions may be adaptive for particular strains.
-Computationally decode DNA changes that may lead to UTR length change.
-Experimentally validate associations of UTR length changes and nucleotide changes at UTR junctions and in overlapping functional elements.
