Dynamic Alternative Splicing During Mouse Preimplantation Embryo Development

Yongqiang Xing; Wuritu Yang; Guoqing Liu; Xiangjun Cui; Hu Meng; Hongyu Zhao; Xiujuan Zhao; Jun Li; Zhe Liu; Michael Q Zhang; Lu Cai

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2020.00035

Dynamic Alternative Splicing During Mouse Preimplantation Embryo Development

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2020 Feb 7:8:35. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2020.00035. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yongqiang Xing^{1

2}, Wuritu Yang³, Guoqing Liu^{1

2}, Xiangjun Cui^{1

2}, Hu Meng^{1

2}, Hongyu Zhao^{1

2}, Xiujuan Zhao^{1

2}, Jun Li^{1

2}, Zhe Liu¹, Michael Q Zhang⁴, Lu Cai^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Science and Technology, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, China.
² The Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Functional Genome Bioinformatics, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, China.
³ The Key Laboratory of Mammalian Reproductive Biology and Biotechnology of the Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.
⁴ Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Systems Biology, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, United States.

Abstract

The mechanism of alternative pre-mRNA splicing (AS) during preimplantation development is largely unknown. In order to capture the dynamic changes of AS occurring during embryogenesis, we carried out bioinformatics analysis based on scRNA-seq data over the time-course preimplantation development in mouse. We detected numerous previously-unreported differentially expressed genes at specific developmental stages and investigated the nature of AS at both minor and major zygotic genome activation (ZGA). The AS and differential AS atlas over preimplantation development were established. The differentially alternatively spliced genes (DASGs) are likely to be key splicing factors (SFs) during preimplantation development. We also demonstrated that there is a regulatory cascade of AS events in which some key SFs are regulated by differentially AS of their own gene transcripts. Moreover, 212 isoform switches (ISs) during preimplantation development were detected, which may be critical for decoding the mechanism of early embryogenesis. Importantly, we uncovered that zygotic AS activation (ZASA) is in conformity with ZGA and revealed that AS is coupled with transcription during preimplantation development. Our results may provide a deeper insight into the regulation of early embryogenesis.

Keywords: alternative splicing; gene expression; preimplantation development; splicing factors; zygotic gene activation.