TY  - JOUR
AU  - Weir, Kurt
AU  - Vega, Natasha
AU  - Busa, Veronica
AU  - Sajdak, Ben
AU  - Kallestad, Les
AU  - Merriman, Dana
AU  - Palczewski, Krzysztof
AU  - Carroll, Joseph
AU  - Blackshaw, Seth
TI  - Identification of shared gene expression programs activated in multiple modes of torpor across vertebrate clades.
JO  - Scientific reports
VL  - 14
IS  - 1
SN  - 2045-2322
CY  - [London]
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
M1  - DKFZ-2024-02099
SP  - 24360
PY  - 2024
AB  - Torpor encompasses diverse adaptations to extreme environmental stressors such as hibernation, aestivation, brumation, and daily torpor. Here we introduce StrokeofGenus, an analytic pipeline that identifies distinct transcriptomic states and shared gene expression patterns across studies, tissues, and species. We use StrokeofGenus to study multiple and diverse forms of torpor from publicly-available RNA-seq datasets that span eight species and two classes. We identify three transcriptionally distinct states during the cycle of heterothermia: euthermia, torpor, and interbout arousal. We also identify torpor-specific gene expression patterns that are shared both across tissues and between species with over three hundred million years of evolutionary divergence. We further demonstrate the general sharing of gene expression patterns in multiple forms of torpor, implying a common evolutionary origin for this process. Although here we apply StrokeofGenus to analysis of torpor, it can be used to interrogate any other complex physiological processes defined by transient transcriptomic states.
KW  - Animals
KW  - Torpor: genetics
KW  - Vertebrates: genetics
KW  - Transcriptome
KW  - Gene Expression Profiling: methods
KW  - Hibernation: genetics
KW  - Gene Expression Regulation
KW  - Biological Evolution
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:39420030
C2  - pmc:PMC11487170
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s41598-024-74324-5
UR  - https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/294078
ER  -