Landscape of RNA editing reveals new insights into the dynamic gene regulation of spermatogenesis

ABSTRACT

Spermatogenesis is an important physiological process associated with male infertility. As a kind of post-transcriptional regulation, RNA editings (REs) change the genetic information at the mRNA level. But whether there are REs and what’s the role of REs during the process are still unclear. In this study, we integrated published RNA-Seq datasets and established a landscape of RNA REs during the development of mouse spermatogenesis. Totally, 7530 editing sites occurred in 2012 genes among all types of male germ cells were found, these sites enrich on some regions of chromosomes, including chromosome 17 and both ends of chromosome Y. We also found about half of the REs in CDSs can cause amino acids changes. Some non-synonymous REs which exist in specific genes may play important roles in spermatogenesis. Finally, we verified a non-synonymous A-to-I RNA editing site in Cog3 and a stoploss editing in Tssk6 during spermatogenesis. In short, we systematically analyzed the dynamic landscape of RNA editing at different stages of spermatogenesis.

KEYWORDS:

• Spermatogenesis
• RNA editing
• Integrated RNA-Seq
• conserved editing site
• Tssk6

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 61772431 and 31572399]; Natural Science Fundamental Research Plan of Shaanxi Province [grant number 2018JM6039]; Program of Shaanxi Province Science and Technology Innovation Team (2019TD-036).