Muscle Developmental Defects in Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein A1 Knockout Mice

Transcriptome analysis of total RNA samples from heart tissue of knockout mice Alternative splicing is the main mechanism to increase protein diversity from an mRNA. Heterogeneous ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) family members are vital regulators of alternative splicing. The hnRNP A1 is the most well-known protein in this family, but its role in embryonic development is not well understood. We generated hnRNP A1 knockout mice to study the function of hnRNP A1 in vivo. The hnRNP A1-depleted mice showed embryonic lethality because of muscle developmental defects. In a previous study, cellular hnRNP A2/B1 was reported to be capable of compensating for the expression of hnRNP A1. However, this phenomenon did not occur in the hnRNP A1 heterozygous mice in vivo. We demonstrated that hnRNP A1 regulated muscle-related genes expression and alternative splicing. In summary, our data demonstrated that hnRNP A1 plays a critical role in embryonic muscle development. Understanding the effects of hnRNP A1 in vivo may help to define the function of hnRNP A1 in alternative splicing. We analyzed total RNA from heart of knockout mice (3 males) using the Affymetrix Mouse Exon 1.0 ST platform. Array data was processed by Affymetrix Exon Array Computational Tool. No techinical replicates were performed.