Project description:MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that are critical in post-transcriptional regulation. According to the latest miRBase (v22), there are 617 annotated pre-miRNAs in Macaca mulatta, which is much less than 1917 in human, although both of these two species are primates. To improve the annotation of miRNAs in Macaca mulatta, we generated 12 small RNA profiles from 8 tissues and perform comprehensive analysis of these profiles. We identified 613 conserved pre-miRNAs that have not been reported in Macaca mulatta and 25 novel miRNAs. Furthermore, we identified 996 editing sites with significant editing levels from 250 pre-miRNAs after analyzing the 12 self-generated and 58 additional published sRNA-seq profiles from different types of organs or tissues. Our results show that the distribution of different miRNA editing types in Macaca mulatta is different from that in human brains. Particularly, there are much more small indel events in miRNAs of Macaca mulatta than in human brains. These results significantly increase our understanding of miRNAs and their editing events in Macaca mulatta.
Project description:Transposable elements (TE) account for more than 50% of human genome. It has been reported that some types of TEs are dynamically regulated in the reprogramming of human cell lines. However, it is largely unknown whether some TEs in Macaca mulatta are also regulated during the reprogramming of cell lines of monkey. Here, we systematically examined the transcriptional activities of TEs during the conversion of Macaca mulatta fibroblast cells to neuroepithelial stem cells (NESCs). Hundreds of TEs were dynamically regulated during the reprogramming of Macaca mulatta fibroblast cells. Furthermore, 60 Long Terminal Repeats (LTRs), as well as some integrase elements, of MacERV3 were transiently activated during the early stages of the conversion process. These LTRs were potentially bound by critical transcription factors for reprogramming, such as KLF4 and ETV5. These results suggest that the transcription of TEs are delicately regulated during the reprogramming of Macaca mulatta fibroblast cells. Although the family of ERVs activated during the reprogramming of fibroblast cells in Macaca mulatta are different from those in the reprogramming of human fibroblast cells, our results suggest that the activation of some ERVs is a conserved mechanism in primates for converting fibroblast cells to stem cells.
