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Heterogeneous Expression of Alternatively Spliced lncRNA mediates Vascular Smooth Cell Plasticity

ABSTRACT: 9p21 locus polymorphisms have the strongest correlation with coronary artery disease, but as a non-coding locus, disease connection is enigmatic. The lncRNA ANRIL found in 9p21 may regulate vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) phenotype to contribute to disease risk. We observed significant variability in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived VSMCs from patients homozygous for risk versus isogenic knockout or non-risk haplotypes. Sub-populations of risk haplotype cells exhibited variable morphology, proliferation, contraction, and adhesion. When sorted by adhesion, risk VSMCs parsed into synthetic and contractile sub-populations, i.e., weakly adherent and strongly adherent, respectively. >90% of differentially expressed genes co-regulated by haplotype and adhesion were associated with Rho GTPases, i.e., contractility. Weakly adherent sub-populations expressed more short isoforms of ANRIL, and when overexpressed in knockout cells, ANRIL suppressed adhesion, contractility, and αSMA expression. These data are the first to suggest that variable lncRNA penetrance may drive mixed functional outcomes that confound pathology.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE211144 | GEO | 2022/08/19

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The 9p21.3 cardiovascular disease locus is the most influential common genetic risk factor for coronary artery disease, accounting for ~10-15% of disease among non-African populations. The ~60kb risk haplotype is human-specific and lacks coding genes, hindering efforts to decipher its function. Genetic studies implicate the 9p21.3 locus and other risk genes to effects in the vascular wall. Here, we use genome editing to delete the entire risk on non-risk haplotype from the genomes of human iPSCs and perform genomewide transcriptional profiling along the timecourse of their differentiation into vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). These studies identify a network of ~3000 genes governed by the risk haplotype in VSMCs that predict deficits in cell division, adhesion and contraction, which we confirmufunctionally. Remarkably, deleting the risk haplotype reverts VSMCs to resemble the non-risk VSMCs, suggesting that the risk region drives a cell state transition. transcriptionally and functionally. . Deleting the risk haplotype reverts these cells to reverted to the non-risk of iPSCs we show that the non-risk haplotype has little effect on locus we produce iPSCs from risk and non-risk individuals, delete each haplotype using genome editing and generate vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). We show that risk VSMCs exhibit aberrant adhesion and contraction, concomitant with dramatically altered global transcriptional changes that are enriched in previously identified cardiovascular disease genes and pathways. Unexpectedly, deleting the risk haplotype rescues VSMC transcriptional identity and function, while expressing the 9p21.3-associated long non-coding RNA ANRIL induces risk phenotypes in non-risk VSMCs. This studies shows that the risk haplotype dominantly predisposes VSMCs to adopt perturbed phenotypes associated with cardiovascular disease and establishes haplotype-edited iPSCs as powerful tools for functionally annotating human-specific variation in non-coding genomic regions.

Project description:The antisense non-coding RNA in the INK locus (ANRIL), which originates from the CDKN2A/B (INK4-ARF) locus, has been identified as a hotspot for genetic variants associated with cardiometabolic disease including coronary artery disease (CAD) and Type 2 diabetes (T2D). We recently found that ANRIL abundance in human pancreatic islets was increased in donors carrying certain T2D risk-SNPs, and that a T2D risk-SNP located within exon2 of ANRIL conferred reduced beta cell proliferation index, pointing to a role for ANRIL in the regulation of T2D pathogenicity via an impact on insulin secretory capacity. Recent studies in other cell types have found that the balance between linear and circular species of ANRIL is linked to the regulation of cardiovascular disease phenotypes. Less is known about circular ANRIL expression in diabetes-relevant cell types and how their abundance might influence the risk of T2D. Herein, we use high-throughput and divergent primer sequencing of circular RNA in human pancreatic islet cells to quantify and characterize circular isoforms of ANRIL. We identified several circular ANRIL isoforms that are more abundant than linear ANRIL and whose expression was correlated across dozens of individuals. Back-splicing did not occur with equal probability at all ANRIL splice sites. Rather, some specific splice sites were found to have a higher propensity to be involved in back-splicing and are weakly enriched for sequence features known to promote back-splicing. Finally, we found that islets from carriers of the T2D risk allele at rs564398 in exon 2 of ANRIL had a higher ratio of circular ANRIL relative to linear ANRIL compared to protective-allele carriers, and that higher circular:linear ANRIL ratio was associated with a decreased beta cell proliferation index. Together, our study points to the combined involvement of both linear and circular ANRIL species in T2D phenotypes and opens the door for future studies to understand the molecular mechanisms by which ANRIL impacts cellular function in human pancreatic islets.

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Heterogeneous Expression of Alternatively Spliced lncRNA mediates Vascular Smooth Cell Plasticity

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