CBCB faculty Zia Khan publishes a paper in Science on the impact of regulatory variation from RNA to protein

Tue Jan 06, 2015
CBCB faculty Zia Khan and collaborators have published a paper titled “Impact of regulatory variation from RNA to protein” on December 18, 2014 in the journal Science.

In this study, Dr. Khan and collaborators mapped genetic variants that are associated with changes in gene expression, ribosome occupancy, and protein abundance in human cell lines. This is the first study to map the impact of genetic variation on three distinct regulatory layers, transcriptional, translational, and post-translational, from RNA to protein.

The study provides two main findings: (1) genetic variation that impacts gene expression tends to have attenuated or buffered affects on protein abundance (2) a new class of functional genetic variation that acts post-translationally to alter protein abundance with little affect on gene expression or protein translation. The study is the first of its kind and provides an important resource for the broader scientific community.

“Impact of regulatory variation from RNA to protein” article: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/12/17/science.1260793.abstract