遗传鲁棒性发生机制

Mechanism of Genetic Robustness

遗传鲁棒性(genetic robustness)是指在生物发育过程中,生命体具备类似缓冲系统,在存在遗传突变的情况下仍能维持本体正常发育。遗传鲁棒性的介导机制研究较多的是遗传冗余(genetic redundancy)和分布式鲁棒性(distributed robustness),二者均在蛋白质水平触发。新近,在斑马鱼中发现了一种新的遗传鲁棒性介导机制——遗传补偿效应(genetic compensation response,GCR),其发生在基因敲除(knockout)而不是基因敲减(knockdown)中,并在蛋白质反馈调节上游的RNA水平触发。鉴于目前涉及到遗传鲁棒性相关的概念较多,本文试图从补偿基因类型、触发方式等分类理清相关概念,重点综述新近发现的遗传补偿效应机制,并展望基于功能补偿机制下研究特定基因功能思路。

Genetic robustness refers to the fact that an organism has a buffer system that can maintain normal development,even if the existence of genetic mutations during biological development.Previous research on the underlying mechanism of genetic robustness mainly involves in genetic redundancy and distributed robustness,both of which are triggered at the protein level.Recently,a new genetic compensation response(GCR)mechanism has been discovered in zebrafish,which occurs in knockout rather than knockdown individuals and is triggered upstream of protein feedback regulation.Since there are many concepts related to genetic robustness,this review attempts to clarify these concepts from the types of compensation genes and triggering modes.Additionally,we aim to understand the latest discovered GCR mechanism and look forward to studying the function of specific genes based on functional compensation.