Allele-specific expression in the human heart and its application to postoperative atrial fibrillation and myocardial ischemia
BMC Seminar Thursday 30th of September, 12:00 in Læknagarður room 343
Speaker: Dr. Martin Ingi Sigurdsson, MD, PhD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, University of Iceland, Faculty of Medicine & Chief Physician, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Landspitali University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland
Title: Allele-specific expression in the human heart and its application to postoperative atrial fibrillation and myocardial ischemia
Zoom link: https://eu01web.zoom.us/j/67300503955
Abstract: Differential expression between each allele of an autosomal gene, allele-specific expression (ASE), allows us to examine the biological control of gene expression in health and disease. Previously it has been shown that ASE is tissue-specific and ASE pattern of similar tissue types is similar. The ASE landscape of the human heart is poorly characterized, and few attempts have been made to use ASE to understand the pathophysiology of cardiac disease. Here we utilized two unique high-throughput RNA-seq datasets from the human left atrium (LA) and left ventricle (LV) sampled during open heart surgery to study ASE. Our hypothesis was that there was both an ASE pattern common to both chambers, as well as chamber-specific ASE. Additionally, we compared ASE pattern between patients who had postoperative atrial fibrillation (poAF) and those who did not as well as variants with differential ASE associated with the myocardial response to ischemia. Our results highlight the utility of ASE analysis to identify disease-associated variants.