Gene Expression

We employed next-generation sequencing platforms (Illumina/Solexa and 454) to sequence the transcriptome of the naked mole-rat which allowed us to compare liver gene expression profiles between naked mole-rats and wild-derived mice. Our results indicate that genes associated with oxidoreduction and mitochondria are expressed at higher levels in naked mole-rats. We also identified a number of candidate genes that may help explain the longevity and cancer-resistance of naked mole-rats and may serve as foci for further studies. This work provides methods and hypothesis for further understanding the naked mole-rat's fascinating characteristics.

In this page you will find the results and datasets derived from our analysis, including the supplementary material, previously described in:

Yu, C., Li, Y., Holmes, A., Szafranski, K., Faulkes, C. G., Coen, C. W., Buffenstein, R., Platzer, M., de Magalhaes J. P., Church, G. M. (2011) RNA sequencing reveals differential expression of mitochondrial and oxidation reduction genes in the long-lived naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) when compared to mice. PLoS ONE 6:e26729.
Supplementary material

RNA_seq_supplements.zip, full results for all genes and functional enrichment analysis.

Raw data

Raw Illumina/Solexa reads are available in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository under accession GSE30764.

The raw naked mole-rat 454 data are available at the Leibniz Institute for Age Research.