ADAR1-mediated A-to-I RNA editing is essential for erythropoiesis [RNA-seq]

Purpose: RNA editing by ADAR1 is essential for hematopoietic development. The goals of this study were firstly, to identify ADAR1-specific RNA-editing sites by indentifying A-to-I (G) RNA editing sites in wild type mice that were not edited or reduced in editing frequency in ADAR1 deficient murine erythroid cells. Secondly, to determine the transcription consequence of an absence of ADAR1-mediated A-to-I editing. Methods: Total RNA from E14.5 fetal liver of embryos with an erythroid restricted deletion of ADAR1 (KO) and littermate controls (WT), in duplicate. cDNA libraries were prepared and RNA sequenced using Illumina HiSeq2000. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed at the transcript level with TopHat followed by Cufflinks. qRT–PCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays. A-to-I (G) RNA editing sites were identified as previously described by Ramaswami G. et al., Nature Methods, 2012 using Burrows–Wheeler Aligner (BWA) followed by ANOVA (ANOVA). RNA editing sites were confirmed by Sanger sequencing. Results: Using an optimized data analysis workflow, we mapped about 30 million sequence reads per sample to the mouse genome (build mm9) and identified 14,484 transcripts in the fetal livers of WT and ADAR1E861A mice with BWA. RNA-seq data had a goodness of fit (R2) of >0.7, p<0.0001 between biological duplicates per genotype. Clusters of hyper-editing were onserved in long, unannotated 3''UTRs of erythroid specific transcripts. A profound upregulation of interferon stimulated genes were found to be massively upregulated (up to 5 log2FC) in KO fetal liver compared to WT. 11.332 (6,894 novel) A-to-I RNA editing sites were identified when assessing mismatches in RNA-seq data. Conclusions: Our study represents the first detailed analysis of erythroid transcriptomes and A-to-I RNA editing sites, with biologic replicates, generated by RNA-seq technology. A-to-I RNA editing is the essential function of ADAR1 and is required to prevent sensing of endogenous transcripts, likely via a RIG-I like receptor mediated axis. Overall design: Fetal liver mRNA profiles of E14.5 wild type (WT) and ADAR Epor-Cre knock out mice were generated by deep sequencing, in duplicate using Illumina HiSeq 2000.

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Liddicoat BJ, Hartner JC, Piskol R, Ramaswami G, Chalk AM, Kingsley PD, Sankaran VG, Wall M, Purton LE, Seeburg PH, Palis J, Orkin SH, Lu J, Li JB, Walkley CR