Transcriptome profiling of Drosophila Wild Type and Sox21a-/- intestinal progenitor cells

Purpose: Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has revolutionized systems-based analysis of cellular pathways. The goals of this study are to compare transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) of intestinal progenitor cells in Drosophila wild type and Sox21a mutant midgut. Methods: mRNA profiles of intestinal progenitor cells isolated from 7-day-old wild-type (WT) and Sox21a knockout (Sox21a-/-) Drosophila midgut were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina HiSeq 4000. Results: Each sequencing experiment generated an average 11.18 million raw reads, and 86% was successfully mapped for each experiment. 7608 transcripts were identified in the progenitor cells of WT and Sox21a-/- Drosophila midgut with TopHat workflow. 389 genes of the transcripts showed differential expression between the WT and Sox21a-/- progenitor cells, with a fold change =2.0 and p value <0.05. Hierarchical clustering of differentially expressed genes uncovered several as yet uncharacterized genes that may contribute to intestinal function. Overall design: mRNA profiles of intestinal progenitor cells isolated from 10-day-old wild-type (WT) and Sox21a knockout (Sox21a-/-) Drosophila adult midgut were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina HiSeq 4000.