Long non-coding RNAs regulate adipogenesis (Illumina RNA-Seq)

Adipogenesis involves the regulation of hundreds of genes by several well-studied proteins, but the role of long, noncoding RNAs in this process has not been defined. We track the regulation of hundreds of lncRNAs during adipocyte differentiation, and find several that are essential for this process. We extracted brown and white primary adipocytes and pre-adipocytes and profiled lncRNA expresssion via mRNA-Seq. We also profiled cultured, differentiated adipocytes to verify that we could recapitulate the adipocyte expression profile in preparation for a loss-of-function screen for essential adipogenic lincRNAs.脂肪生成（Adipogenesis）是由多种已被充分研究的蛋白质调控数百个基因的生物学过程，但长链非编码RNA（long noncoding RNAs，lncRNAs）在该过程中的作用尚未明确。本研究追踪了脂肪细胞分化过程中数百个lncRNA的调控动态，并发现其中若干个对该过程不可或缺。我们分离了棕色及白色原代脂肪细胞与前体脂肪细胞，并通过mRNA测序（mRNA-Seq）对lncRNA的表达谱进行了分析。此外，我们还对体外培养的成熟脂肪细胞开展了表达谱分析，以验证我们可重现脂肪细胞的表达特征，为后续针对调控成脂过程的必需长链基因间非编码RNA（long intergenic noncoding RNAs，lincRNAs）的功能缺失筛选实验做好准备。