RNA-seq reveals differences in liver gene expression rhythms between young and old mice

Purpose: We used RNA-seq to compare daily rhythms of gene expression in livers of young and old mice. Methods: Livers of young and old mice were processed for RNA-seq at 4-h interval across 2 days. Gene expression level was analyzed by hisat2 and StringTie. Results: We obtained ~10 million high quality sequencing reads per time point per sample after quality control and alignment. Gene expression levels of ~19,000 transcripts were obtained for both age groups. We found genome-wide differenes in gene expression level as well as rhythms in gene expression. Conclusions: Our study revealed genomwide differences in the level and rhythm of liver gene expression between young and old mice. Overall design: Mouse livers were collected at 4-h interval across two days from both young and old mice and RNA-seq was performed to analyze gene expression.