Alternative polyadenylation coordinates embryonic development, sexual dimorphism and longitudinal growth in Xenopus tropicalis.

Alternative polyadenylation coordinates embryonic development, sexual dimorphism and longitudinal growth in Xenopus tropicalis.
Cell Mol Life Sci. 2019 Feb 07;:
Authors: Zhou X, Zhang Y, Michal JJ, Qu L, Zhang S, Wildung MR, Du W, Pouchnik DJ, Zhao H, Xia Y, Shi H, Ji G, Davis JF, Smith GD, Griswold MD, Harland RM, Jiang Z
Abstract
RNA alternative polyadenylation contributes to the complexity of information transfer from genome to phenome, thus amplifying gene function. Here, we report the first X. tropicalis resource with 127,914 alternative polyadenylation (APA) sites derived from embryos and adults. Overall, APA networks play central roles in coordinating the maternal-zygotic transition (MZT) in embryos, sexual dimorphism in adults and longitudinal growth from embryos to adults. APA sites coordinate reprogramming in embryos before the MZT, but developmental events after the MZT due to zygotic genome activation. The APA transcriptomes of young adults are more variable than growing adults and male frog APA transcriptomes are more divergent than females. The APA profiles of young females were similar to embryos before the MZT. Enriched pathways in developing embryos were distinct across the MZT and noticeably segregated from adults. Briefly, our results suggest that the minimal functional units in genomes are alternative transcripts as opposed to genes.
PMID: 30729254 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences : CMLS - February 7, 2019 Category: Cytology Authors: Zhou X, Zhang Y, Michal JJ, Qu L, Zhang S, Wildung MR, Du W, Pouchnik DJ, Zhao H, Xia Y, Shi H, Ji G, Davis JF, Smith GD, Griswold MD, Harland RM, Jiang Z Tags: Cell Mol Life Sci Source Type: research