Huntington's disease-specific mis-splicing captured by human-mouse intersect-RNA-seq unveils pathogenic effectors and reduced splicing factors

Abstract

Deregulated alternative splicing has been implicated in a wide range of pathologies. Deep RNA-sequencing has revealed global mis-splicing signatures in multiple human diseases; however, for neurodegenerative diseases, these analyses are intrinsically hampered by neuronal loss and neuroinflammation in post-mortem brains. To infer splicing alterations relevant to Huntingtons disease (HD) pathogenesis, here we performed intersect-RNA-seq analyses of human post-mortem striatal tissue and of an early symptomatic mouse model in which neuronal loss and gliosis are not yet present. Together with a human/mouse parallel motif scan analysis, this approach allowed us to identify the shared mis-splicing signature triggered by the HD-causing mutation in both species and to infer upstream deregulated splicing factors. Moreover, we identified a plethora of downstream neurodegeneration-linked effector genes, whose aberrant splicing is associated with decreased protein levels in HD patients and mice. In summary, our intersect-RNA-seq approach unveiled the pathogenic contribution of mis-splicing to HD and could be readily applied to other neurodegenerative diseases for which bona fide animal models are available.