The C. elegans neural editome reveals an ADAR target mRNA required for proper chemotaxis. Caenorhabditis elegans

ADAR proteins alter gene expression both via catalyzing adenosine-to-inosine RNA editing and in an editing-independent manner by binding to target RNAs. Loss of ADARs affects neuronal function in all animals studied to date. To identify important neuronal targets in C. elegans, we performed the first unbiased assessment of the effects of ADR-2, the C. elegans editing enzyme, on the neural transcriptome. We identified the neural editome and gene expression changes associated with the loss of adr-2. As C. elegans lacking adr-2 exhibit reduced chemotaxis, our studies focused on targets that regulate this process. We identified an edited mRNA, clec-41, whose expression is dependent on ADR-2. Expressing clec-41 in adr-2 deficient neural cells restored chemotaxis. This study is the first of its kind in the RNA editing field to span from developing novel methodology for tissue-specific target identification to organismal behavior, significantly advancing our understanding of ADAR functions in neural cells. Overall design: Strand-specific editing sites and differential expression analysis was done on triplicate WT (wildtype) and Adr2- (control) C. elegans neural cells.