ELAVL2-regulated transcriptional networks in human neurons link atlernative splicing, autism and human neocortical evolution

The role of post-transcriptional gene regulation in human brain development and cognitive diseases remains mostly uncharacterized. ELAV-like RNA binding proteins are a family of proteins that regulate several aspects of neuronal function including neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission. Here, we identify the downstream transcriptional networks of ELAVL2, an RNA-binding protein with unknown function in the brain. We knockdown expression of ELAVL2 in human neurons and conduct RNA-sequencing, identifying networks of differentially expressed and alternatively spliced genes with altered ELAVL2. These networks contain autism-relevant genes as well as previously identified targets of other RNA binding proteins implicated in autism spectrum disorders such as RBFOX1 and FMRP. ELAVL2-regulated coexpression networks are also enriched for synaptic genes as well as genes with human-specific patterns of gene expression in the frontal pole. Together, these data suggest that ELAVL2 regulation of transcript expression is critical for neuronal functions at risk in autism spectrum disorders and such mechanisms of post-transcriptional gene regulation may have contributed to human brain evolution. Overall design: We carried out RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) of human neural progenitors cells. For the RNA-seq, 5 indipendent replicates were used for the neural progenitor cells. Primary human neural progenitor cultures were derived from mid-gestation fetal brain. Cells were transduced with a lentivirus containing a specific shRNA to ELAVL2 or a control shRNA. Cells were differentiated into neurons for 4 weeks and then harvested.

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Berto S, Usui N, Konopka G, Fogel BL