# Competition between maternal and paternal X chromosomes in human biology and cancer

> **NIH NIH R16** · SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $155,000

## Abstract

While generally the genes in a single organism are thought of as having aligned
interests – maximizing the fitness of the organism – under some circumstances,
different genes in an individual may benefit from different tradeoffs between an
organism’s characteristics. Under such “intragenomic conflict,” different genes may
evolve to influence the organism in different ways, and to antagonize the actions of
other genes. While the importance of this fact is well-understood among molecular
evolutionary biologists, biomedical researchers have largely failed to appreciate these
implications. In the proposed work, we will explore the long-underappreciated role of
the X chromosome in intragenomic conflict, and elucidate the impacts of this conflict on
human biology. The X chromosome is expected to experience particularly high levels of
intragenomic conflict both because of its atypical inheritance pattern (being primarily
inherited from females) and because of its hemizygous experience (allowing a single
allele to have outsize influence). The long term goals of this research programme are to
understand how intragenomic conflict influences human health and to devise conflict-
focused strategies for interventions. The short-term goals of this proposal are to identify
the regulatory, transcriptomic and cellular impacts of conflict-drive X chromosomal
biology. We will pursue these goals through (i) studying the impact of genomic conflict
on X chromosomal microRNA regulatory networks; (ii) identifying genes that are
differentially expressed on X chromosomes depending on which parent they are
inherited from; and (iii) using single-cell RNA-seq data to identify the cell-type and
transcriptomic impacts of differential expression of maternally- and paternally-inherited
X chromosomes in human tissues.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10842424
- **Project number:** 5R16GM149480-02
- **Recipient organization:** SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Scott Roy
- **Activity code:** R16 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $155,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-05-16 → 2027-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10842424

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10842424, Competition between maternal and paternal X chromosomes in human biology and cancer (5R16GM149480-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10842424. Licensed CC0.

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