The relationship between regulatory changes in cis and trans and the evolution of gene expression in humans and chimpanzees.

Background: Comparative gene expression studies in apes are fundamentally limited by the challenges associated with sampling across different tissues. Here, we used single-cell RNA sequencing of embryoid bodies to collect transcriptomic data from over 70 cell types in three humans and three chimpanzees.

Results: We find hundreds of genes whose regulation is conserved across cell types, as well as genes whose regulation likely evolves under directional selection in one or a handful of cell types.