Human fibroblasts display a differential focal adhesion phenotype relative to chimpanzee.

Alexander S Advani,Annie Y Chen,Courtney C Babbitt

doi:10.1093/emph/eow010

Abstract

There are a number of documented differences between humans and our closest relatives in responses to wound healing and in disease susceptibilities, suggesting a differential cellular response to certain environmental factors. In this study, we sought to look at a specific cell type, fibroblasts, to examine differences in cellular adhesion between humans and chimpanzees in visualized cells and in gene expression. We have found significant differences in the number of focal adhesions between primary human and chimpanzee fibroblasts. Additionally, we see that adhesion related gene ontology categories are some of the most differentially expressed between human and chimpanzee in normal fibroblast cells. These results suggest that human and chimpanzee fibroblasts may have somewhat different adhesive properties, which could play a role in differential disease phenotypes and responses to external factors.

Highlights

Recent efforts to expose genotypic differences between humans and our closest relatives have uncovered the question of gene expression changes and the role they play in influencing phenotype
There have been a number of studies looking at differences in gene expression between humans and chimpanzees [3,4,5,6,7]; very few studies have undertaken a comparative analysis at the level of phenotypic cell biology in these species
Vinculin is a focal adhesion-specific protein that is critical to the structure of focal adhesions [20, 25, 26]

Summary

Introduction

Recent efforts to expose genotypic differences between humans and our closest relatives have uncovered the question of gene expression changes and the role they play in influencing phenotype. There have been a number of studies looking at differences in gene expression between humans and chimpanzees [3,4,5,6,7]; very few studies have undertaken a comparative analysis at the level of phenotypic cell biology in these species.

Methods

Results

Conclusion