Analyze Diet
Nucleic acids research2018; 47(D1); D835-D840; doi: 10.1093/nar/gky1040

SAGD: a comprehensive sex-associated gene database from transcriptomes.

Abstract: Many animal species present sex differences. Sex-associated genes (SAGs), which have female-biased or male-biased expression, have major influences on the remarkable sex differences in important traits such as growth, reproduction, disease resistance and behaviors. However, the SAGs resulting in the vast majority of phenotypic sex differences are still unknown. To provide a useful resource for the functional study of SAGs, we manually curated public RNA-seq datasets with paired female and male biological replicates from the same condition and systematically re-analyzed the datasets using standardized methods. We identified 27,793 female-biased SAGs and 64,043 male-biased SAGs from 2,828 samples of 21 species, including human, chimpanzee, macaque, mouse, rat, cow, horse, chicken, zebrafish, seven fly species and five worm species. All these data were cataloged into SAGD, a user-friendly database of SAGs (http://bioinfo.life.hust.edu.cn/SAGD) where users can browse SAGs by gene, species, drug and dataset. In SAGD, the expression, annotation, targeting drugs, homologs, ontology and related RNA-seq datasets of SAGs are provided to help researchers to explore their functions and potential applications in agriculture and human health.
Publication Date: 2018-11-01 PubMed ID: 30380119PubMed Central: PMC6323940DOI: 10.1093/nar/gky1040Google Scholar: Lookup
The Equine Research Bank provides access to a large database of publicly available scientific literature. Inclusion in the Research Bank does not imply endorsement of study methods or findings by Mad Barn.
  • Journal Article
  • Research Support
  • Non-U.S. Gov't

Summary

This research summary has been generated with artificial intelligence and may contain errors and omissions. Refer to the original study to confirm details provided. Submit correction.

The research article discusses the creation of a comprehensive database called SAGD, which holds information about Sex-Associated Genes (SAGs). The SAGD holds data about SAGs from 21 species that exhibit sex differences in traits such as growth, reproduction, and disease resistance.

Objective of the Study:

  • The primary goal of this research paper is to curate a vast, comprehensive database featuring Sex-Associated Genes (SAGs) from 21 different animal species. SAGs, which demonstrate either female or male-biased expressions, play a critical role in determining the sex differences in key characteristics such as growth, reproduction, disease resistance, and behaviors.

Methodology:

  • Public RNA sequencing datasets with paired male and female biological replicates undergoing the same conditions were manually curated and systematically re-analyzed using standardized methods.
  • The researchers identified 27,793 female-biased SAGs and 64,043 male-biased SAGs from 2,828 samples spanning 21 species.
  • All this data has been catalogued into the SAGD (Sex-Associated Gene Database). This database is user-friendly, and allows users to explore SAGs by gene, species, drug, and dataset.

Findings and Data Presentation:

  • The SAGD presents the expression, annotation, targeting drugs, homologs, ontology, and linked RNA sequencing datasets of SAGs in a user-friendly interface. This presentation aids researchers in exploring their functions and possible applications in agriculture and human health.
  • The SAGs from multiple species, including humans, chimpanzees, macaques, mice, rats, cows, horses, chickens, zebrafish, seven fly species, and five worm species, showing the broad scope of data included in the database.

Implications and Applications:

  • The creation of this database will allow for better research into SAGs, potentially revealing new findings about sex differences in various species.
  • The findings could have potential applications in agriculture, such as identifying the best animals for breeding or combating diseases, and in human health, such as understanding sex-based differences in disease resistance and responses to medicines.

Cite This Article

APA
Shi MW, Zhang NA, Shi CP, Liu CJ, Luo ZH, Wang DY, Guo AY, Chen ZX. (2018). SAGD: a comprehensive sex-associated gene database from transcriptomes. Nucleic Acids Res, 47(D1), D835-D840. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gky1040

Publication

ISSN: 1362-4962
NlmUniqueID: 0411011
Country: England
Language: English
Volume: 47
Issue: D1
Pages: D835-D840

Researcher Affiliations

Shi, Meng-Wei
  • Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China.
Zhang, Na-An
  • Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China.
Shi, Chuan-Ping
  • Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China.
Liu, Chun-Jie
  • Department of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China.
Luo, Zhi-Hui
  • Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China.
Wang, Dan-Yang
  • Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China.
Guo, An-Yuan
  • Department of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China.
Chen, Zhen-Xia
  • Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China.

MeSH Terms

  • Animals
  • Cattle
  • Databases, Genetic
  • Diptera / genetics
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Regulation / genetics
  • Horses / genetics
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Rats
  • Reproduction / genetics
  • Sex Characteristics
  • Software
  • Transcriptome / genetics
  • Zebrafish / genetics

References

This article includes 29 references
  1. Bachtrog D, Mank JE, Peichel CL, Kirkpatrick M, Otto SP, Ashman TL, Hahn MW, Kitano J, Mayrose I, Ming R, Perrin N, Ross L, Valenzuela N, Vamosi JC. Sex determination: why so many ways of doing it?. PLoS Biol 2014 Jul;12(7):e1001899.
  2. . Tree of Sex: a database of sexual systems.. Sci Data 2014;1:140015.
    pmc: PMC4322564pubmed: 25977773doi: 10.1038/sdata.2014.15google scholar: lookup
  3. Ellegren H, Parsch J. The evolution of sex-biased genes and sex-biased gene expression.. Nat Rev Genet 2007 Sep;8(9):689-98.
    pubmed: 17680007doi: 10.1038/nrg2167google scholar: lookup
  4. Grath S, Parsch J. Sex-Biased Gene Expression.. Annu Rev Genet 2016 Nov 23;50:29-44.
  5. Parsch J, Ellegren H. The evolutionary causes and consequences of sex-biased gene expression.. Nat Rev Genet 2013 Feb;14(2):83-7.
    pubmed: 23329110doi: 10.1038/nrg3376google scholar: lookup
  6. Hall AB, Basu S, Jiang X, Qi Y, Timoshevskiy VA, Biedler JK, Sharakhova MV, Elahi R, Anderson MA, Chen XG, Sharakhov IV, Adelman ZN, Tu Z. SEX DETERMINATION. A male-determining factor in the mosquito Aedes aegypti.. Science 2015 Jun 12;348(6240):1268-70.
    pmc: PMC5026532pubmed: 25999371doi: 10.1126/science.aaa2850google scholar: lookup
  7. Graves JA. Evolution of vertebrate sex chromosomes and dosage compensation.. Nat Rev Genet 2016 Jan;17(1):33-46.
    pubmed: 26616198doi: 10.1038/nrg.2015.2google scholar: lookup
  8. Gilks WP, Abbott JK, Morrow EH. Sex differences in disease genetics: evidence, evolution, and detection.. Trends Genet 2014 Oct;30(10):453-63.
    pubmed: 25239223doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2014.08.006google scholar: lookup
  9. Yuan Y, Liu L, Chen H, Wang Y, Xu Y, Mao H, Li J, Mills GB, Shu Y, Li L, Liang H. Comprehensive Characterization of Molecular Differences in Cancer between Male and Female Patients.. Cancer Cell 2016 May 9;29(5):711-722.
    pmc: PMC4864951pubmed: 27165743doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2016.04.001google scholar: lookup
  10. Morrow EH. The evolution of sex differences in disease.. Biol Sex Differ 2015;6:5.
    pmc: PMC4359385pubmed: 25774286doi: 10.1186/s13293-015-0023-0google scholar: lookup
  11. Chen ZX, Sturgill D, Qu J, Jiang H, Park S, Boley N, Suzuki AM, Fletcher AR, Plachetzki DC, FitzGerald PC, Artieri CG, Atallah J, Barmina O, Brown JB, Blankenburg KP, Clough E, Dasgupta A, Gubbala S, Han Y, Jayaseelan JC, Kalra D, Kim YA, Kovar CL, Lee SL, Li M, Malley JD, Malone JH, Mathew T, Mattiuzzo NR, Munidasa M, Muzny DM, Ongeri F, Perales L, Przytycka TM, Pu LL, Robinson G, Thornton RL, Saada N, Scherer SE, Smith HE, Vinson C, Warner CB, Worley KC, Wu YQ, Zou X, Cherbas P, Kellis M, Eisen MB, Piano F, Kionte K, Fitch DH, Sternberg PW, Cutter AD, Duff MO, Hoskins RA, Graveley BR, Gibbs RA, Bickel PJ, Kopp A, Carninci P, Celniker SE, Oliver B, Richards S. Comparative validation of the D. melanogaster modENCODE transcriptome annotation.. Genome Res 2014 Jul;24(7):1209-23.
    pmc: PMC4079975pubmed: 24985915doi: 10.1101/gr.159384.113google scholar: lookup
  12. Meisel RP, Malone JH, Clark AG. Disentangling the relationship between sex-biased gene expression and X-linkage.. Genome Res 2012 Jul;22(7):1255-65.
    pmc: PMC3396367pubmed: 22499666doi: 10.1101/gr.132100.111google scholar: lookup
  13. Kim B, Suo B, Emmons SW. Gene Function Prediction Based on Developmental Transcriptomes of the Two Sexes in C. elegans.. Cell Rep 2016 Oct 11;17(3):917-928.
  14. Blekhman R, Marioni JC, Zumbo P, Stephens M, Gilad Y. Sex-specific and lineage-specific alternative splicing in primates.. Genome Res 2010 Feb;20(2):180-9.
    pmc: PMC2813474pubmed: 20009012doi: 10.1101/gr.099226.109google scholar: lookup
  15. Lin Y, Golovnina K, Chen ZX, Lee HN, Negron YL, Sultana H, Oliver B, Harbison ST. Comparison of normalization and differential expression analyses using RNA-Seq data from 726 individual Drosophila melanogaster.. BMC Genomics 2016 Jan 5;17:28.
    pmc: PMC4702322pubmed: 26732976doi: 10.1186/s12864-015-2353-zgoogle scholar: lookup
  16. Lin Y, Chen ZX, Oliver B, Harbison ST. Microenvironmental Gene Expression Plasticity Among Individual Drosophila melanogaster.. G3 (Bethesda) 2016 Dec 7;6(12):4197-4210.
    pmc: PMC5144987pubmed: 27770026doi: 10.1534/g3.116.035444google scholar: lookup
  17. Assis R, Zhou Q, Bachtrog D. Sex-biased transcriptome evolution in Drosophila.. Genome Biol Evol 2012;4(11):1189-200.
    pmc: PMC3514954pubmed: 23097318doi: 10.1093/gbe/evs093google scholar: lookup
  18. Gnad F, Parsch J. Sebida: a database for the functional and evolutionary analysis of genes with sex-biased expression.. Bioinformatics 2006 Oct 15;22(20):2577-9.
    pubmed: 16882652doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btl422google scholar: lookup
  19. Papatheodorou I, Fonseca NA, Keays M, Tang YA, Barrera E, Bazant W, Burke M, Füllgrabe A, Fuentes AM, George N, Huerta L, Koskinen S, Mohammed S, Geniza M, Preece J, Jaiswal P, Jarnuczak AF, Huber W, Stegle O, Vizcaino JA, Brazma A, Petryszak R. Expression Atlas: gene and protein expression across multiple studies and organisms.. Nucleic Acids Res 2018 Jan 4;46(D1):D246-D251.
    pmc: PMC5753389pubmed: 29165655doi: 10.1093/nar/gkx1158google scholar: lookup
  20. Barrett T, Wilhite SE, Ledoux P, Evangelista C, Kim IF, Tomashevsky M, Marshall KA, Phillippy KH, Sherman PM, Holko M, Yefanov A, Lee H, Zhang N, Robertson CL, Serova N, Davis S, Soboleva A. NCBI GEO: archive for functional genomics data sets--update.. Nucleic Acids Res 2013 Jan;41(Database issue):D991-5.
    pmc: PMC3531084pubmed: 23193258doi: 10.1093/nar/gks1193google scholar: lookup
  21. Zhu Y, Stephens RM, Meltzer PS, Davis SR. SRAdb: query and use public next-generation sequencing data from within R.. BMC Bioinformatics 2013 Jan 17;14:19.
    pmc: PMC3560148pubmed: 23323543doi: 10.1186/1471-2105-14-19google scholar: lookup
  22. Kersey PJ, Allen JE, Allot A, Barba M, Boddu S, Bolt BJ, Carvalho-Silva D, Christensen M, Davis P, Grabmueller C, Kumar N, Liu Z, Maurel T, Moore B, McDowall MD, Maheswari U, Naamati G, Newman V, Ong CK, Paulini M, Pedro H, Perry E, Russell M, Sparrow H, Tapanari E, Taylor K, Vullo A, Williams G, Zadissia A, Olson A, Stein J, Wei S, Tello-Ruiz M, Ware D, Luciani A, Potter S, Finn RD, Urban M, Hammond-Kosack KE, Bolser DM, De Silva N, Howe KL, Langridge N, Maslen G, Staines DM, Yates A. Ensembl Genomes 2018: an integrated omics infrastructure for non-vertebrate species.. Nucleic Acids Res 2018 Jan 4;46(D1):D802-D808.
    pmc: PMC5753204pubmed: 29092050doi: 10.1093/nar/gkx1011google scholar: lookup
  23. Kim D, Langmead B, Salzberg SL. HISAT: a fast spliced aligner with low memory requirements.. Nat Methods 2015 Apr;12(4):357-60.
    pmc: PMC4655817pubmed: 25751142doi: 10.1038/nmeth.3317google scholar: lookup
  24. Anders S, Pyl PT, Huber W. HTSeq--a Python framework to work with high-throughput sequencing data.. Bioinformatics 2015 Jan 15;31(2):166-9.
  25. Love MI, Huber W, Anders S. Moderated estimation of fold change and dispersion for RNA-seq data with DESeq2.. Genome Biol 2014;15(12):550.
    pmc: PMC4302049pubmed: 25516281doi: 10.1186/s13059-014-0550-8google scholar: lookup
  26. Polak G, Wertel I, Tarkowski R, Morawska D, Kotarski J. Decreased lactoferrin levels in peritoneal fluid of women with minimal endometriosis.. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 2007 Mar;131(1):93-96.
    pubmed: 16644090doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2006.03.013google scholar: lookup
  27. Kinsella RJ, Kähäri A, Haider S, Zamora J, Proctor G, Spudich G, Almeida-King J, Staines D, Derwent P, Kerhornou A, Kersey P, Flicek P. Ensembl BioMarts: a hub for data retrieval across taxonomic space.. Database (Oxford) 2011;2011:bar030.
    pmc: PMC3170168pubmed: 21785142doi: 10.1093/database/bar030google scholar: lookup
  28. Wishart DS, Feunang YD, Guo AC, Lo EJ, Marcu A, Grant JR, Sajed T, Johnson D, Li C, Sayeeda Z, Assempour N, Iynkkaran I, Liu Y, Maciejewski A, Gale N, Wilson A, Chin L, Cummings R, Le D, Pon A, Knox C, Wilson M. DrugBank 5.0: a major update to the DrugBank database for 2018.. Nucleic Acids Res 2018 Jan 4;46(D1):D1074-D1082.
    pmc: PMC5753335pubmed: 29126136doi: 10.1093/nar/gkx1037google scholar: lookup
  29. Kumar S, Stecher G, Suleski M, Hedges SB. TimeTree: A Resource for Timelines, Timetrees, and Divergence Times.. Mol Biol Evol 2017 Jul 1;34(7):1812-1819.
    pubmed: 28387841doi: 10.1093/molbev/msx116google scholar: lookup

Citations

This article has been cited 20 times.
  1. Feng Y, Yang M, Fan Z, Zhao W, Kim P, Zhou X. COVIDanno, COVID-19 annotation in human. Front Microbiol 2023;14:1129103.
    doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1129103pubmed: 37497545google scholar: lookup
  2. Wapeesittipan P, Joshi A. Integrated analysis of robust sex-biased gene signatures in human brain. Biol Sex Differ 2023 May 24;14(1):36.
    doi: 10.1186/s13293-023-00515-wpubmed: 37221602google scholar: lookup
  3. Montgomery EJ, Xing E, Campbell MJ, Li PK, Blachly JS, Tsung A, Coss CC. Constitutively Active Androgen Receptor in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Int J Mol Sci 2022 Nov 9;23(22).
    doi: 10.3390/ijms232213768pubmed: 36430245google scholar: lookup
  4. Ran X, Xiao J, Cheng F, Wang T, Teng H, Sun Z. Pan-cancer analyses of synonymous mutations based on tissue-specific codon optimality. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2022;20:3567-3580.
    doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.07.005pubmed: 35860410google scholar: lookup
  5. Shireman JM, Ammanuel S, Eickhoff JC, Dey M. Sexual dimorphism of the immune system predicts clinical outcomes in glioblastoma immunotherapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurooncol Adv 2022 Jan-Dec;4(1):vdac082.
    doi: 10.1093/noajnl/vdac082pubmed: 35821678google scholar: lookup
  6. Chen S, Jin Y, Wang S, Xing S, Wu Y, Tao Y, Ma Y, Zuo S, Liu X, Hu Y, Chen H, Luo Y, Xia F, Xie C, Yin J, Wang X, Liu Z, Zhang N, Zech Xu Z, Lu ZJ, Wang P. Cancer type classification using plasma cell-free RNAs derived from human and microbes. Elife 2022 Jul 11;11.
    doi: 10.7554/eLife.75181pubmed: 35816095google scholar: lookup
  7. Liu W, Yu J, Wang YF, Shan QQ, Wang YX. Selection of suitable internal controls for gene expression normalization in rats with spinal cord injury. Neural Regen Res 2022 Jun;17(6):1387-1392.
    doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.327350pubmed: 34782586google scholar: lookup
  8. Faranda AP, Shihan MH, Wang Y, Duncan MK. The effect of sex on the mouse lens transcriptome. Exp Eye Res 2021 Aug;209:108676.
    doi: 10.1016/j.exer.2021.108676pubmed: 34146586google scholar: lookup
  9. Parker DJ, Envall T, Ritchie MG, Kankare M. Sex-specific responses to cold in a very cold-tolerant, northern Drosophila species. Heredity (Edinb) 2021 Apr;126(4):695-705.
    doi: 10.1038/s41437-020-00398-2pubmed: 33510465google scholar: lookup
  10. Chen XI, Mei Y, Chen M, Jing D, He Y, Liu F, He K, Li F. InSexBase: an annotated genomic resource of sex chromosomes and sex-biased genes in insects. Database (Oxford) 2021 Jan 28;2021.
    doi: 10.1093/database/baab001pubmed: 33507270google scholar: lookup
  11. Way GP, Zietz M, Rubinetti V, Himmelstein DS, Greene CS. Compressing gene expression data using multiple latent space dimensionalities learns complementary biological representations. Genome Biol 2020 May 11;21(1):109.
    doi: 10.1186/s13059-020-02021-3pubmed: 32393369google scholar: lookup
  12. Tung KF, Lin WC. A visualization tool for individual gene expression profiles among males and females in GTEx tissues. Biol Sex Differ 2025 Dec 4;17(1):3.
    doi: 10.1186/s13293-025-00796-3pubmed: 41345892google scholar: lookup
  13. Jeffries D, Benvenuto C, Böhne A, Fraïsse C, Garcia S, Jay P, Kratochvíl L, McDonough-Goldstein CE, Ruiz-Herrera A, Sotero-Caio CG, Valenzuela N, Wilson MA, Jaron KS. The Tree of Sex consortium: a global initiative for studying the evolution of reproduction in eukaryotes. J Evol Biol 2025 Aug 2;38(7):861-886.
    doi: 10.1093/jeb/voaf053pubmed: 40336333google scholar: lookup
  14. Jones R, Gilbert SJ, Christofides SR, Mason DJ. Osteocytes contribute to sex-specific differences in osteoarthritic pain. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) 2024;15:1480274.
    doi: 10.3389/fendo.2024.1480274pubmed: 39574959google scholar: lookup
  15. Shen X, Zhang Y, Li J, Zhou Y, Butensky SD, Zhang Y, Cai Z, DeWan AT, Khan SA, Yan H, Johnson CH, Zhu F. OncoSexome: the landscape of sex-based differences in oncologic diseases. Nucleic Acids Res 2025 Jan 6;53(D1):D1443-D1459.
    doi: 10.1093/nar/gkae1003pubmed: 39535034google scholar: lookup
  16. Yang M, Feng Y, Liu J, Wang H, Wu S, Zhao W, Kim P, Zhou X. SexAnnoDB, a knowledgebase of sex-specific regulations from multi-omics data of human cancers. Biol Sex Differ 2024 Aug 22;15(1):64.
    doi: 10.1186/s13293-024-00638-8pubmed: 39175079google scholar: lookup
  17. Zhao J, Fang L, Pu R, Liu W, Cai S, Wang R, Shi Y, Li Z, Zhang Z, Li Z, Cao G. Androgen receptor-induced molecules and androgen contribute synergistically to male-predominance of hepatocellular carcinoma. iScience 2024 Aug 16;27(8):110519.
    doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.110519pubmed: 39156638google scholar: lookup
  18. Findley TO, Palei AC, Cho KS, Zhao Z, Shi C, Mahajan G, Corno AF, Salazar J, McCullough L. Sex differences in metabolic adaptation in infants with cyanotic congenital heart disease. Pediatr Res 2024 Oct;96(5):1201-1209.
    doi: 10.1038/s41390-024-03291-4pubmed: 38839995google scholar: lookup
  19. Salapa HE, Thibault PA, Libner CD, Ding Y, Clarke JWE, Denomy C, Hutchinson C, Abidullah HM, Austin Hammond S, Pastushok L, Vizeacoumar FS, Levin MC. hnRNP A1 dysfunction alters RNA splicing and drives neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis (MS). Nat Commun 2024 Jan 8;15(1):356.
    doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44658-1pubmed: 38191621google scholar: lookup
  20. Hu Qian S, Shi MW, Wang DY, Fear JM, Chen L, Tu YX, Liu HS, Zhang Y, Zhang SJ, Yu SS, Oliver B, Chen ZX. Integrating massive RNA-seq data to elucidate transcriptome dynamics in Drosophila melanogaster. Brief Bioinform 2023 Jul 20;24(4).
    doi: 10.1093/bib/bbad177pubmed: 37232385google scholar: lookup