Associated 16P11.2 Deletion in Drosophila Melanogaster
ARTICLE DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04882-6 OPEN Pervasive genetic interactions modulate neurodevelopmental defects of the autism- associated 16p11.2 deletion in Drosophila melanogaster Janani Iyer1, Mayanglambam Dhruba Singh1, Matthew Jensen1,2, Payal Patel 1, Lucilla Pizzo1, Emily Huber1, Haley Koerselman3, Alexis T. Weiner 1, Paola Lepanto4, Komal Vadodaria1, Alexis Kubina1, Qingyu Wang 1,2, Abigail Talbert1, Sneha Yennawar1, Jose Badano 4, J. Robert Manak3,5, Melissa M. Rolls1, Arjun Krishnan6,7 & 1234567890():,; Santhosh Girirajan 1,2,8 As opposed to syndromic CNVs caused by single genes, extensive phenotypic heterogeneity in variably-expressive CNVs complicates disease gene discovery and functional evaluation. Here, we propose a complex interaction model for pathogenicity of the autism-associated 16p11.2 deletion, where CNV genes interact with each other in conserved pathways to modulate expression of the phenotype. Using multiple quantitative methods in Drosophila RNAi lines, we identify a range of neurodevelopmental phenotypes for knockdown of indi- vidual 16p11.2 homologs in different tissues. We test 565 pairwise knockdowns in the developing eye, and identify 24 interactions between pairs of 16p11.2 homologs and 46 interactions between 16p11.2 homologs and neurodevelopmental genes that suppress or enhance cell proliferation phenotypes compared to one-hit knockdowns. These interac- tions within cell proliferation pathways are also enriched in a human brain-specific network, providing translational relevance in humans. Our study indicates a role for pervasive genetic interactions within CNVs towards cellular and developmental phenotypes. 1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. 2 Bioinformatics and Genomics Program, The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
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