RIOK2-dependent transcriptional changes in primary human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs)

Purpose: Illumina next-generation sequencing (NGS) has been used to interrogate the transcriptome profiling (bulk RNA-seq) of primary human HSPCs in the presence and absence of RIOK2. Primary human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) isolated from 3 different donors were genome edited to obtain knockdown (KD) and knockout (KO) of RIOK2. The genome edited HSPCs were then differentiated for 48 hours and their total RNA was isolated to perform cDNA synthesis and bulk RNA sequencing. The overall goal of this study was to investigate the global alterations in gene expressions with dose-dependent loss of RIOK2 in primary human HSPCs, that would expand our understanding of RIOK2-dependent transcriptomic changes involved in hematopoietic differentiation. Overall design: Primary human HSPCs isolated from 3 different donors were subjected to genome-editing using CRISPR-Cas9 to generate knockdown (KD) and knockout (KO) of RIOK2. The cells were placed in differentiation media for 48 hours followed by RNA extraction. RNA sequencing libraries were prepared using the NEBNext Ultra RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina following manufacturer's instructions (NEB, Ipswich, MA, USA). Briefly, mRNAs were first enriched with Oligo(dT) beads. Enriched mRNAs were fragmented for 15 minutes at 94 °C. First strand and second strand cDNAs were subsequently synthesized. cDNA fragments were end repaired and adenylated at 3'ends, and universal adapters were ligated to cDNA fragments, followed by index addition and library enrichment by limited-cycle PCR. The sequencing libraries were validated on the Agilent TapeStation (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA, USA), and quantified by using Qubit 2.0 Fluorometer (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) as well as by quantitative PCR (KAPA Biosystems, Wilmington, MA, USA). The sequencing libraries were clustered on 1 lane of a flowcell. After clustering, the flowcell was loaded on the Illumina HiSeq instrument (4000 or equivalent) according to manufacturer's instructions. The samples were sequenced using a 2x150bp Paired End (PE) configuration. Image analysis and base calling were conducted by the HiSeq Control Software (HCS). Raw sequence data (.bcl files) generated from Illumina HiSeq was converted into fastq files and de-multiplexed using Illumina's bcl2fastq 2.17 software.