Project description:Understanding gene regulation in stem cells is key to understanding stem cell biology.Contrary to transcriptional regulation the function of alternative splicing (AS) in stem cells is poorly understood. Here we study function and mechanisms of AS in a powerful in vivo model for stem cell biology, the planarian S. mediterranea. Knockdown of AS factors, computational analyses of massive RNA-sequencing data, phenotyping, and biochemical binding assays revealed a stem cell specific AS program comprising hundreds of alternative exons, intron retention events, and microexons. The conserved AS factors CELF/MBNL are main regulators of this program. We show that they antagonize each other by directly promoting or repressing stem cell specific AS events. Knockdown of CELF/MBNL leads to defective regeneration by affecting self-renewal and differentiation, respectively. Thus, AS is of key importance for stem cell regulation in vivo and antagonistic regulation by CELF/MBNL is likely an ancestral feature of animal stem cells. Sequencing of polyA-selected RNA from Schmidtea mediterranea individuals after control, smed-bruno-like(RNAi) and mbnl(RNAi) after 20,25,30 days after RNAi
Project description:Understanding gene regulation in stem cells is key to understanding stem cell biology. Contrary to transcriptional regulation the function of alternative splicing (AS) in stem cells is poorly understood. Here we study function and mechanisms of AS in a powerful in vivo model for stem cell biology, the planarian S. mediterranea. Knockdown of AS factors, computational analyses of massive RNA-sequencing data, phenotyping, and biochemical binding assays revealed a stem cell specific AS program comprising hundreds of alternative exons, intron retention events, and microexons. The conserved AS factors CELF/MBNL are main regulators of this program. We show that they antagonize each other by directly promoting or repressing stem cell specific AS events. Knockdown of CELF/MBNL leads to defective regeneration by affecting self-renewal and differentiation, respectively. Thus, AS is of key importance for stem cell regulation in vivo and antagonistic regulation by CELF/MBNL is likely an ancestral feature of animal stem cells. mRNA profiles of various samples of planarian cells, including control and knockdowns of key splicing factors in whole worms, and FACS-purified fractions
Project description:Understanding gene regulation in stem cells is key to understanding stem cell biology.Contrary to transcriptional regulation the function of alternative splicing (AS) in stem cells is poorly understood. Here we study function and mechanisms of AS in a powerful in vivo model for stem cell biology, the planarian S. mediterranea. Knockdown of AS factors, computational analyses of massive RNA-sequencing data, phenotyping, and biochemical binding assays revealed a stem cell specific AS program comprising hundreds of alternative exons, intron retention events, and microexons. The conserved AS factors CELF/MBNL are main regulators of this program. We show that they antagonize each other by directly promoting or repressing stem cell specific AS events. Knockdown of CELF/MBNL leads to defective regeneration by affecting self-renewal and differentiation, respectively. Thus, AS is of key importance for stem cell regulation in vivo and antagonistic regulation by CELF/MBNL is likely an ancestral feature of animal stem cells.
Project description:Understanding gene regulation in stem cells is key to understanding stem cell biology. Contrary to transcriptional regulation the function of alternative splicing (AS) in stem cells is poorly understood. Here we study function and mechanisms of AS in a powerful in vivo model for stem cell biology, the planarian S. mediterranea. Knockdown of AS factors, computational analyses of massive RNA-sequencing data, phenotyping, and biochemical binding assays revealed a stem cell specific AS program comprising hundreds of alternative exons, intron retention events, and microexons. The conserved AS factors CELF/MBNL are main regulators of this program. We show that they antagonize each other by directly promoting or repressing stem cell specific AS events. Knockdown of CELF/MBNL leads to defective regeneration by affecting self-renewal and differentiation, respectively. Thus, AS is of key importance for stem cell regulation in vivo and antagonistic regulation by CELF/MBNL is likely an ancestral feature of animal stem cells.
Project description:The CUG-BP and ETR-3-like factor 1 (Celf1) RNA binding protein plays an important role in heart and muscle development, and is over-expressed in the disease myotonic dystrophy. Celf1 has known roles in regulation of RNA splicing, RNA stability, and protein translation. To identify transcriptome-wide targets of the Celf1 protein in heart, we performed RNA-Seq of polyA+ RNA from mice inducibly expressing Celf1 in the muscle.