Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America.
Mol Brain. 2024 Jun 20;17(1):40. doi: 10.1186/s13041-024-01112-7.
Alternative splicing (AS) contributes to the biological heterogeneity between species, sexes, tissues, and cell types. Many diseases are either caused by alterations in AS or by alterations to AS. Therefore, measuring AS accurately and efficiently is critical for assessing molecular phenotypes, including those associated with disease. Long-read sequencing enables more accurate quantification of differentially spliced isoform expression than short-read sequencing approaches, and third-generation platforms facilitate high-throughput experiments. To assess differences in AS across the cerebellum, cortex, hippocampus, and striatum by sex, we generated and analyzed Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long-read RNA sequencing (lrRNA-Seq) C57BL/6J mouse brain cDNA libraries. From > 85 million reads that passed quality control metrics, we calculated differential gene expression (DGE), differential transcript expression (DTE), and differential transcript usage (DTU) across brain regions and by sex. We found significant DGE, DTE, and DTU across brain regions and that the cerebellum had the most differences compared to the other three regions. Additionally, we found region-specific differential splicing between sexes, with the most sex differences in DTU in the cortex and no DTU in the hippocampus. We also report on two distinct patterns of sex DTU we observed, sex-divergent and sex-specific, that could potentially help explain sex differences in the prevalence and prognosis of various neurological and psychiatric disorders in future studies. Finally, we built a Shiny web application for researchers to explore the data further. Our study provides a resource for the community; it underscores the importance of AS in biological heterogeneity and the utility of long-read sequencing to better understand AS in the brain.
可变剪接 (AS) 导致了物种之间、性别之间、组织之间和细胞类型之间的生物学异质性。许多疾病要么是由 AS 的改变引起的,要么是由 AS 的改变引起的。因此,准确有效地测量 AS 对于评估分子表型至关重要,包括与疾病相关的表型。长读测序比短读测序方法更能准确地定量差异剪接异构体的表达,而第三代平台则有利于高通量实验。为了评估性别对小脑、皮层、海马体和纹状体的 AS 差异,我们生成并分析了牛津纳米孔技术 (ONT) 长读 RNA 测序 (lrRNA-Seq) C57BL/6J 小鼠脑 cDNA 文库。从通过质量控制指标的 >8500 万条读取中,我们计算了大脑区域之间和性别之间的差异基因表达 (DGE)、差异转录本表达 (DTE) 和差异转录本使用 (DTU)。我们发现大脑区域之间存在显著的 DGE、DTE 和 DTU,与其他三个区域相比,小脑的差异最大。此外,我们发现性别之间存在区域特异性的差异剪接,皮层中的 DTU 性别差异最大,而海马体中没有 DTU。我们还报告了两种不同的性别 DTU 模式,即性别分歧和性别特异性,这可能有助于在未来的研究中解释各种神经和精神障碍在患病率和预后方面的性别差异。最后,我们构建了一个 Shiny 网络应用程序供研究人员进一步探索数据。我们的研究为社区提供了一个资源;它强调了 AS 在生物学异质性中的重要性,以及长读测序在更好地理解大脑中的 AS 方面的效用。