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Evolutionary Changes in Pathways and Networks of Genes Expressed in the Brains of Humans and Macaques

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Abstract

As the key organ that separates humans from nonhuman primates, the brain has continuously evolved to adapt to environmental and climatic changes. Although humans share most genetic, molecular, and cellular features with other primates such as macaques, there are significant differences in the structure and function of the brain between humans and these species. Thus, exploring the differences between the brains of human and nonhuman primates in the context of evolution will provide insights into the development, functionality, and diseases of the human central nervous system (CNS). Since the genes involved in many aspects of the human brain are under common pressures of natural selection, their evolutionary features can be analyzed collectively at the pathway level. In this study, the molecular mechanisms underlying human brain capabilities were explored by comparing the evolution features of pathways enriched in genes expressed in the human brain and the macaque brain. We identified 31 pathways with differential evolutionary properties, including those related to neurological diseases, signal transduction, immunological response, and metabolic processes. By analyzing genes differentially expressed in brain regions or development stages between humans and macaques,  9 and 4 pathways with differential evolutionary properties were detected, respectively. We further performed crosstalk analysis on the pathways to obtain an intuitive correlation between the pathways, which is helpful in understanding the mechanisms of interaction between pathways. Our results provide on a comprehensive view of the evolutionary pathways of the human CNS and can serve as a reference for the study of human brain development.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mr. Yonglin Peng and Ms. Meng Yuan for helpful discussions in preparation of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (no. 2016YFC0906300), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 91746205 and 31271411).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biomedical Engineering, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China

    Yuequn Ma, Changying Cao, Mengwen Zhao, Xinhua Liu & Ju Wang

  2. Department of Pharmaceutical Science, College of Pharmacy, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA

    Feng Cheng

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  1. Yuequn Ma
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  2. Changying Cao
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  4. Xinhua Liu
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  5. Feng Cheng
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Contributions

YM, FC and JW designed the experiments. YM, CC, MZ and JW performed experiments and data analysis. YM, FC and JW wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ju Wang.

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Ma, Y., Cao, C., Zhao, M. et al. Evolutionary Changes in Pathways and Networks of Genes Expressed in the Brains of Humans and Macaques. J Mol Neurosci 71, 1825–1837 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12031-021-01874-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12031-021-01874-y

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