Cigarette Smoking-Associated Isoform Switching and 3’ UTR Lengthening Via Alternative Polyadenylation

Cigarette smoking accounts for approximately one in five deaths in the United States. Previous genomic studies have primarily focused on gene level differential expression to identify related molecular signatures and pathways, but the genome-wide effects of smoking on alternative isoform regulation and posttranscriptional modulation have not yet been described. We attempted to fill this void by identifying smoking-associated isoform switches and their responsible splicing events and consequences using RNA-seq. RNA-seq data were generated from whole blood samples from 454 current and 767 former smokers enrolled in the COPDGene Study. Raw read data are submitted to dbGaP. NOTE from submitter: RAW DATA will be uploaded to dbGAP