Abstract
IntroductionThe common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), a small New World monkey, has been widely used as a biological model in neuroscience to elucidate neural circuits involved in cognition and to understand brain dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders. In this regard, the availability of gene expression data derived from next‐generation sequencing (NGS) technologies represents an opportunity for a molecular contextualization. Sexual dimorphism account for differences in diseases prevalence and prognosis. Here, we explore sex differences on frontal cortex of gene expression in common marmoset's adults.MethodsGene expression profiles in six different tissues (cerebellum, frontal cortex, liver, heart, and kidney) were analyzed in male and female marmosets. To emphasize the translational value of this species for behavioral studies, we focused on sex‐biased gene expression from the frontal cortex of male and female in common marmosets and compared to humans (Homo sapiens).ResultsIn this study, we found that frontal cortex genes whose expression is male‐biased are conserved between marmosets and humans and enriched with “house‐keeping” functions. On the other hand, female‐biased genes are more related to neural plasticity functions involved in remodeling of synaptic circuits, stress cascades, and visual behavior. Additionally, we developed and made available an application—the CajaDB—to provide a friendly interface for genomic, expression, and alternative splicing data of marmosets together with a series of functionalities that allow the exploration of these data. CajaDB is available at cajadb.neuro.ufrn.br.ConclusionThe data point to differences in gene expression of male and female common marmosets in all tissues analyzed. In frontal cortex, female‐biased expression in synaptic plasticity, stress, and visual processing might be linked to biological and behavioral mechanisms of this sex. Due to the limited sample size, the data here analyzed are for exploratory purposes.
Highlights
The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), a small New World monkey, has been widely used as a biological model in neuroscience to elucidate neural circuits involved in cognition and to understand brain dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders
Our analysis shows a difference in the tendency of alternative splicing events between sexes, which is consistently described in humans and nonhuman primates (Blekhman, Marioni, Zumbo, Stephens, & Gilad, 2010)
Findings of our study emphasize the translational value of common marmosets
Summary
The use of animal models is necessary to advance the understanding of biomedical, evolutionary, and behavioral processes of our species. This, together with other marmosets’ characteristics—small size (~300–400 g), easy handling in a lab setting, high reproduction rate, and the possibility of gene editing (Miller et al, 2016)—make them a suitable model for molecular and behavioral studies. This species presents a set of pro‐social behaviors that is uncommon among primates, but present in humans (Burkart & van Schaik, 2009). To facilitate the access and analyses of omics data from marmosets, we developed a user‐friendly application—the CajaDB (https://cajadb.neuro.ufrn.br)—which can be used by the scientific community without solid bioinformatics background
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