SMN deficiency in spinal muscular atrophy causes widespread intron retention and DNA damage

Spinal muscular atrophy is the leading genetic cause of infant mortality and is caused by homozygous loss of the SMN1 gene. We investigated global transcriptome changes in the spinal cord of inducible SMA mice. SMN depletion caused widespread retention of introns with weak splice sites or belonging to the minor (U12) class. We further demonstrated accumulation of DNA double strand breaks in the spinal cord of SMA mice and in human SMA cell culture models. DNA damage was partially rescued by suppressing the formation of R-loops, which accumulated over retained introns. We propose that instead of single gene effects, pervasive splicing defects caused by SMN deficiency trigger a global DNA damage and stress response, thus compromising motor neuron survival.