Identification of shared gene expression programs activated in multiple modes of torpor across vertebrate clades

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 24360 - 15
• Main Authors: Weir, Kurt, Vega, Natasha, Busa, Veronica F., Sajdak, Ben, Kallestad, Les, Merriman, Dana, Palczewski, Krzysztof, Carroll, Joseph, Blackshaw, Seth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17-10-2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/114; 631/181; 631/443; Aestivation; Animals; Arousal; Biological Evolution; Body temperature; Datasets; Environmental stress; Fatty acids; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling - methods; Gene Expression Regulation; Hibernation; Hibernation - genetics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Introduced species; Medical research; Medicine; Molecular biology; multidisciplinary; Neurosciences; Ophthalmology; Physiology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Small mammals; Torpor; Torpor - genetics; Transcriptome; Transcriptomics; Vertebrates - genetics
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-74324-5

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.