Post-transcriptional regulation of Ribosome Biogenesis during differentiation [dRNA-seq]

Ribosome biogenesis is a critical component of cell differentiation. Ribosome synthesis has been previously reported to be highly regulated at the transcriptional level, but less is known about its post-transcriptional regulation. Poly(A) tail length regulation is a hallmark of post-transcriptional regulation associated with transcript stability. Here we monitor poly(A) tail length changes at a transcriptome level during P19 differentiation. We found that poly(A) tail shortening occurs during cell differentiation only for transcript encoding for ribosomal proteins. These findings suggest a strong post-transcriptional regulation of ribosome biogenesis during differentiation. P19 cells were differentiated for 6 days into neuron-like cells. RNA was collected before differentiation (D0) and two (D2), four (D4), and six (D6) days after the initiation of differentiation. Direct RNA seq libraries were prepared in triplicates for each timepoint and run on a Nanopore Minion device. Reads were mapped to the mouse transcriptome, and their poly(A) tail length was determined. This information was then used to monitor the changes in transcript abundance and poly(A) tail length during differentiation.