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Related Concept Videos

Constitutive and Regulated Gene Expression01:27

Constitutive and Regulated Gene Expression

Gene expression in prokaryotes is governed by constitutive and regulated systems, allowing cells to balance the production of essential proteins with adaptive responses to environmental changes.Constitutive Gene ExpressionConstitutive, or housekeeping, genes are continuously expressed as they encode proteins vital for fundamental cellular processes. These include enzymes for glycolysis, ribosomal components for protein synthesis, and proteins involved in DNA replication. Their constant...
Structure of a Gene01:30

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A gene is the fundamental unit of heredity. Every individual has two copies of each gene, one inherited from each parent. Although most people contain the same genes, there is a small fraction that is slightly different amongst people. A gene with a small difference in its sequence of DNA bases forms different alleles, contributing to different phenotypes.
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What is Gene Expression?01:36

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A gene is a stretch of DNA that serves as the blueprint for functional RNAs and proteins. Since DNA is comprised  of nucleotides and proteins are comprised of amino acids, a mediator is required to convert the information encoded in DNA into proteins. This mediator is the messenger RNA (mRNA). mRNA copies the blueprint from DNA by a process called transcription. In eukaryotes, transcription occurs in the nucleus by complementary base-pairing with the DNA template. The mRNA is then processed and...
What is Gene Expression?01:42

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Overview
Gene expression is the process in which DNA directs the synthesis of functional products, that is, proteins. Cells can regulate gene expression at various stages. It allows organisms to generate different cell types and enables cells to adapt to internal and external factors.
Genetic Information Flows from DNA to RNA to Protein
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What is Gene Expression?01:42

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Organization of Genes02:07

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Real-time Analysis of Transcription Factor Binding, Transcription, Translation, and Turnover to Display Global Events During Cellular Activation
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How many human genes can be defined as housekeeping with current expression data?

Jiang Zhu1, Fuhong He, Shuhui Song

  • 1Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. zhuj@big.ac.cn

BMC Genomics
|April 18, 2008
PubMed
Summary

This study reveals that a substantial portion of human genes are broadly expressed across tissues, challenging previous estimates. More comprehensive transcriptomic data is needed to fully understand tissue-specific gene expression.

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Area of Science:

  • Genomics
  • Molecular Biology
  • Bioinformatics

Background:

  • Housekeeping (HK) genes maintain basic cellular functions and are ubiquitously expressed.
  • Differentiating HK genes from tissue-specific (TS) genes is crucial for understanding gene expression and cellular differentiation.
  • Existing human HK gene categorizations lack a definitive consensus.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To re-evaluate the number and proportion of human housekeeping genes.
  • To assess the adequacy of current transcriptomic data for HK and TS gene identification.
  • To provide an updated estimate of human HK genes based on the latest datasets.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of gene expression profiles from EST and microarray data across 18 human tissues.
  • Benchmarking against a manually-curated HK gene collection (HK408).
  • Comparison of data adequacy and limitations between EST and microarray datasets.

Main Results:

  • EST data indicated significant underestimation of HK genes due to sampling inadequacy.
  • Microarray data exhibited a high false-negative rate, underestimating HK genes.
  • EST data suggests 40.0% of annotated human genes are broadly expressed (≥16/18 tissues), versus 5.1% being tissue-specific.
  • Estimated human HK genes range from 3,140 to 6,909, a ten-fold increase over previous microarray-based estimates.

Conclusions:

  • A significant fraction of annotated human genes are broadly expressed.
  • Current understanding of tissue-specific expression is preliminary and requires more extensive, high-quality transcriptomic data.
  • The newly categorized HK gene list can aid in future genome-wide analyses of HK gene features.