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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2021.09.29.462469

ReadZS detects developmentally regulated RNA processing programs in single cell RNA-seq and defines subpopulations independent of gene expression

Meyer, E.·Dehghannasiri, R.·Chaung, K.·Salzman, J.
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Abstract

RNA processing (RNAP), including splicing and alternative polyadenylation, is crucial to gene function and regulation, but methods to detect RNAP from single-cell RNA sequencing data are limited by reliance on pre-existing annotations, peak-calling heuristics, and collapsing measurements by cell type. We introduce ReadZS, the first annotation-free statistical approach to identify regulated RNAP in single cells. ReadZS discovers cell type-specific RNAP in the human lung and conserved, developmentally regulated RNAP in mammalian spermatogenesis - including global 3 UTR shortening in human spermatogenesis. ReadZS also discovers global 3 UTR lengthening in Arabidopsis root development, highlighting the usefulness of this method in under-annotated transcriptomes.

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Meyer, E., Dehghannasiri, R., Chaung, K., Salzman, J.. 2021-10-01. ReadZS detects developmentally regulated RNA processing programs in single cell RNA-seq and defines subpopulations independent of gene expression. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.29.462469

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