Figure 3: Genetic variation and strain-specific differences in translation.
From: Translational regulation shapes the molecular landscape of complex disease phenotypes
(a,b) Linkage analysis using RNA-seq data of the HxB/BxH recombinant inbred panel31 derived from the BN-Lx and SHR/Ola strains revealed RNA expression differences under genetic control (eQTLs) for the (a) heart and the (b) liver. Genes with differential RNA expression (forwarded: black bar; buffered: blue bar) between the parental strains were enriched for eQTLs. As expected, genes regulated on the translational level only (red bar) were not significantly enriched for eQTLs (for details see Supplementary Table 2). The majority of RNA expression differences were forwarded to the translational level and detected in both RNA-seq and Ribo-seq experiments. This percentage increased when RNA expression differences were under genetic control. (c) SNP density in the regulatory regions of RNAonly (blue bar) and RIBOonly (red bar) genes compared with genes without RNA or RPF strain-specific differences (grey bar). SNP density was significantly higher in the 3′UTR of translationally regulated genes (Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney). Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval. (d) Known motifs of RNA-binding proteins such as Sf3b4 were more often altered by sequence variants in the 3′UTR compared with genes that did not undergo translational regulation.
