Department of Biotechnology
inStem (Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine)

Genome-Wide Analysis of Polyadenylation Events in Schmidtea mediterranea.

Publication Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

October 13, 2016

Journal

G3 (Bethesda, Md.)

Volume/Issue

6/10

ISSN

2160-1836

In eukaryotes, 3′ untranslated regions (UTRs) play important roles in regulating posttranscriptional gene expression. The 3’UTR is defined by regulated cleavage/polyadenylation of the pre-mRNA. The advent of next-generation sequencing technology has now enabled us to identify these events on a genome-wide scale. In this study, we used poly(A)-position profiling by sequencing (3P-Seq) to capture all poly(A) sites across the genome of the freshwater planarian, Schmidtea mediterranea, an ideal model system for exploring the process of regeneration and stem cell function. We identified the 3’UTRs for ∼14,000 transcripts and thus improved the existing gene annotations. We found 97 transcripts, which are polyadenylated within an internal exon, resulting in the shrinking of the ORF and loss of a predicted protein domain. Around 40% of the transcripts in planaria were alternatively polyadenylated (ApA), resulting either in an altered 3’UTR or a change in coding sequence. We identified specific ApA transcript isoforms that were subjected to miRNA mediated gene regulation using degradome sequencing. In this study, we also confirmed a tissue-specific expression pattern for alternate polyadenylated transcripts. The insights from this study highlight the potential role of ApA in regulating the gene expression essential for planarian regeneration.

Alternate Journal

G3 (Bethesda)

PubMed ID

27489207

PubMed Central ID

PMC5068929

Authors

Vairavan Lakshmanan
Dhiru Bansal
Jahnavi Kulkarni
Deepak Poduval
Srikar Krishna
Vidyanand Sasidharan
Praveen Anand
Aswin Seshasayee
Dasaradhi Palakodeti

Keywords

RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional
Molecular Sequence Annotation
RNA, Messenger
Genome-Wide Association Study
Animals
3' Untranslated Regions
Computational Biology
Reproducibility of Results
Genome, Helminth
Platyhelminths
MicroRNAs
Poly A
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
Polyadenylation
RNA Interference