The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is a highly polymorphic region of the genome located on chromosome 6p21 in which genetic diversity has been associated with susceptibility to many autoimmune, infectious and other common diseases. Despite strong associations between disease and variation in the MHC that have been identified initially from serological testing and more recently by genome-wide association studies, functional insights into how specific variants may be altering disease susceptibility remain poorly understood in most cases. It is predicted that gene expression will play a significant role in the modulation of disease susceptibility and so further understanding of allele specific gene expression in the MHC will be necessary to help define the function of disease associated variants in this region. This thesis aimed to define allele specific gene expression in the MHC by characterising specific candidate genes together locus-wide approaches in order to try and resolve functional variants. Gene expression was analysed in both lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) and primary human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Data is presented validating a novel haplotype-specific MHC microarray and fine mapping putative local, likely cis-acting, regulatory variants. This was done by expression quantitative trait mapping for two cohorts of healthy volunteers. A transcription factor ZFP57, encoded in the MHC, was found to show significant differential allelic expression relating to specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and possession of HLA-type. This provided new insights into reported disease associations, notably HIV-1 infection and cancer. The function of ZFP57 was further investigated in terms of genome-wide DNA binding sites by ChIP-seq together with its binding co-factor KAP1. Allele-specific gene expression was also demonstrated for several classical HLA genes including the HLA-C and HLA-DQ genes, fine mapping specific putative regulatory variants. This provided new insights into disease association, notably variants of HLA-DQB1 and susceptibility to leprosy. The applicability and sensitivity of the technique of RNA sequencing (mRNA-seq) for allele-specific quantification of gene expression was investigated for different allelic ratios of RNA from LCLs homozygous for sequence across the MHC. Significant challenges were identified in successful application of this technique to MHC genes while high levels of accuracy were observed dependent on read depth in non-MHC genes. This thesis provides new insights into the extent and nature of allele-specific gene expression in the MHC, experimental approaches that can be used and insights gained into disease susceptibility for this important genomic region.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:560922 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Plant, Katharine |
| Contributors | Knight, Julian Charles |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f565a41c-4699-4416-b1be-150b6a87dd0f |
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