Comparative Genome-Wide Alternative Splicing Analysis between Preadipocytes and Adipocytes

Abstract

Alternative splicing is a ubiquitous regulatory mechanism in gene expression that allows a single gene to generate multiple messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Adipocyte development is regulated by many processes, and recent studies have found that splicing factors also play an important role in adipogenic development. In the present study, we further investigated the differences in selective shearing during different periods of adipocyte differentiation. We identified five alternative splicing types including skipped exon, mutually exclusive exon, Alternative 5′ splice site, Alternative 3′ splice site, and Retained intron, with skipped exons being the most abundant type of selective shearing. In total, 641 differentially expressed selective shearing genes were obtained, enriched in 279 pathways, from which we selected and verified the accuracy of the sequencing results. Overall, RNA-seq revealed changes in the splicing and expression levels of these new candidate genes between precursor adipocytes and adipocytes, suggesting that they may be involved in adipocyte generation and differentiation.