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Ulrik de Lichtenberg

Publications and source records attributed to Ulrik de Lichtenberg.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Co-evolution of transcriptional and post-translational cell-cycle regulation.

DNA microarray studies have shown that hundreds of genes are transcribed periodically during the mitotic cell cycle of humans, budding yeast, fission yeast and the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Here we show that despite the fact the protein complexes involved in this process are largely the same among all eukaryotes, their regulation has evolved considerably. Our comparative analysis of several large-scale data sets reveals that although the regulated subunits of each protein complex are expressed just before its time of action, the identity of the periodically expressed proteins differs significantly between organisms. Moreover, we show that these changes in transcriptional regulation have co-evolved with post-translational control independently in several lineages; loss or gain of cell-cycle-regulated transcription of specific genes is often mirrored by changes in phosphorylation of the proteins that they encode. Our results indicate that many different solutions have evolved for assembling the same molecular machines at the right time during the cell cycle, involving both transcriptional and post-translational layers that jointly control the dynamics of biological systems.

Arabidopsis↗

The more the merrier: comparative analysis of microarray studies on cell cycle-regulated genes in fission yeast.

The last two years have seen the publication of three genome-wide gene expression studies of the fission yeast cell cycle. While these microarray papers largely agree on the main patterns of cell cycle-regulated transcription and its control, there are discrepancies with regard to the identity and numbers of periodically expressed genes. We present benchmark and reproducibility analyses showing that the main discrepancies do not reflect differences in the data themselves (microarray or synchronization methods seem to lead only to minor biases) but rather in the interpretation of the data. Our reanalysis of the three datasets reveals that combining all independent information leads to an improved identification of periodically expressed genes. These evaluations suggest that the available microarray data do not allow reliable identification of more than about 500 cell cycle-regulated genes. The temporal expression pattern of the top 500 periodically expressed genes is generally consistent across experiments and the three studies, together with our integrated analysis, provide a coherent and rich source of information on cell cycle-regulated gene expression in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The reanalysed datasets and other supplementary information are available from an accompanying website: http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/cellcycle/. We hope that this paper will resolve the apparent discrepancies between the previous studies and be useful both for wet-lab biologists and for theoretical scientists who wish to take advantage of the data for follow-up work.

Cell Cycle↗

Dynamic complex formation during the yeast cell cycle.

To analyze the dynamics of protein complexes during the yeast cell cycle, we integrated data on protein interactions and gene expression. The resulting time-dependent interaction network places both periodically and constitutively expressed proteins in a temporal cell cycle context, thereby revealing previously unknown components and modules. We discovered that most complexes consist of both periodically and constitutively expressed subunits, which suggests that the former control complex activity by a mechanism of just-in-time assembly. Consistent with this, we show that additional regulation through targeted degradation and phosphorylation by Cdc28p (Cdk1) specifically affects the periodically expressed proteins.

CDC28 Protein Kinase, S cerevisiae↗

New weakly expressed cell cycle-regulated genes in yeast.

We present an approach combining bioinformatics prediction with experimental microarray validation to identify new cell cycle-regulated genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We identify in the order of 100 new cell cycle-regulated genes and show by independent data that these genes in general tend to be more weakly expressed than the genes identified hitherto. Among the genes not previously suggested to be periodically expressed we find genes linked to DNA repair, cell size monitoring and transcriptional control, as well as a number of genes of unknown function. Several of the gene products are believed to be phosphorylated by Cdc28. For many of these new genes, homologues exist in Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Homo sapiens for which the expression also varies with cell cycle progression.

Cell Cycle Proteins↗

Comparison of computational methods for the identification of cell cycle-regulated genes.

MOTIVATION: DNA microarrays have been used extensively to study the cell cycle transcription programme in a number of model organisms. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae data in particular have been subjected to a wide range of bioinformatics analysis methods, aimed at identifying the correct and complete set of periodically expressed genes. RESULTS: Here, we provide the first thorough benchmark of such methods, surprisingly revealing that most new and more mathematically advanced methods actually perform worse than the analysis published with the original microarray data sets. We show that this loss of accuracy specifically affects methods that only model the shape of the expression profile without taking into account the magnitude of regulation. We present a simple permutation-based method that performs better than most existing methods.

Algorithms↗

Protein feature based identification of cell cycle regulated proteins in yeast.

DNA microarrays have been used extensively to identify cell cycle regulated genes in yeast; however, the overlap in the genes identified is surprisingly small. We show that certain protein features can be used to distinguish cell cycle regulated genes from other genes with high confidence (features include protein phosphorylation, glycosylation, subcellular location and instability/degradation). We demonstrate that co-expressed, periodic genes encode proteins which share combinations of features, and provide an overview of the proteome dynamics during the cycle. A large set of novel putative cell cycle regulated proteins were identified, many of which have no known function.

Cell Cycle↗