Title: Investigating the role of alternative isoforms in myogenesis
Abstract:
Alternative splicing has long been recognized as a source of transcriptomic diversity in eukaryotes and is known to play a role in the regulation of myogenesis, the process by which muscles are formed and repaired. In this study, we investigate the role of alternative splicing in myogenesis using novel long-read sequencing technologies and custom bioinformatics analysis pipelines. Moreover, we are interested in studying this process at a previously unexplored resolution on the isoform and single-cell level. We performed single-cell/nucleus long-read RNA-seq on C2C12 muscle myotubes and myoblasts and find that our novel experimental and computational approaches are able to capture gene expression trends found in corresponding short-read single-cell/nucleus RNA-seq data. In the immediate future, we wish to utilize these new experimental and analytical approaches to find novel isoform-related insights into the process of myogenesis.