Monoallelic, antisense, and total RNA transcription in an in vitro neural differentiation system based on F1-hybrid mice

We developed an in vitro system to differentiate embryonic stem cells (ESCs) derived from reciprocally crossed F1-hybrid mice into neurons, and used it to investigate poly(A)+ and total RNA transcription at different stages of cell differentiation. By comparing expression profiles of transcripts assembled from 20 RNA sequencing datasets [2 alleles×(2 cell lines×4 time-points+2 mouse brains)], relative influence of strain, cell and parent specificities to overall expression could be assessed. Divergent expression profiles of ESCs converged tightly at neural progenitor stage. Patterns of temporal variation of monoallelically expressed transcripts and antisense transcripts were quantitated. Comparison of sense and antisense transcript pairs within poly(A)+ sample, within total RNA sample, and across poly(A)+ and total RNA samples revealed distinct rates of pairs showing anti-correlated expression variation. Unique patterns of sharing of poly(A)+ and poly(A)− transcription were identified in distinct RNA species. Regulation and functionality of monoallelic expression, antisense transcripts and poly(A)- transcription remain elusive. We demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach to capture these transcriptional activities, and provided new resources to elucidate mammalian developmental transcriptome.