Genomic imbalance determines positive and negative modulation of gene expression in diploid maize

We examined the impact of both increased and decreased dosage of fifteen distal and one interstitial chromosomal regions via RNA-seq of maize mature leaf tissue to reveal new aspects of genomic imbalance. The results indicate that significant changes in gene expression in aneuploids occur both on the varied chromosome (cis) and the remainder of the genome (trans), with a wider spread of modulation compared with the whole-ploidy series of haploid to tetraploid. In general, cis genes in aneuploids range from a gene-dosage effect to dosage compensation, whereas for trans genes the most common effect is an inverse correlation in that expression is modulated towards the opposite direction of the varied chromosomal dosage, although positive modulations also occur. Furthermore, this analysis revealed the existence of increased and decreased effects in which expression of many genes under genome imbalance are modulated towards the same direction regardless of increased or decreased chromosomal dosage, which is predicted from kinetic considerations of multicomponent molecular interactions. The findings provide novel insights into understanding mechanistic aspects of gene regulation. Overall design: Global gene expression analysis of aneuploidy and whole-ploidy series compared with diploid control.