University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications

UMMS Affiliation

Program in Molecular Medicine; UMass Metabolic Network

Publication Date

2016-09-16

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Biochemistry | Cell Biology | Cellular and Molecular Physiology | Genetics and Genomics

Abstract

Alternative pre-mRNA splicing expands the complexity of the transcriptome and controls isoform-specific gene expression. Whether alternative splicing contributes to metabolic regulation is largely unknown. Here we investigated the contribution of alternative splicing to the development of diet-induced obesity. We found that obesity-induced changes in adipocyte gene expression include alternative pre-mRNA splicing. Bioinformatics analysis associated part of this alternative splicing program with sequence specific NOVA splicing factors. This conclusion was confirmed by studies of mice with NOVA deficiency in adipocytes. Phenotypic analysis of the NOVA-deficient mice demonstrated increased adipose tissue thermogenesis and improved glycemia. We show that NOVA proteins mediate a splicing program that suppresses adipose tissue thermogenesis. Together, these data provide quantitative analysis of gene expression at exon-level resolution in obesity and identify a novel mechanism that contributes to the regulation of adipose tissue function and the maintenance of normal glycemia.

Keywords

JNK, NOVA, adipocyte, cell biology, high fat diet, human, mouse, pre-mRNA splicing, thermogenesis

DOI of Published Version

10.7554/eLife.17672

Source

Elife. 2016 Sep 16;5. pii: e17672. doi: 10.7554/eLife.17672. Link to article on publisher's site

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed

Journal/Book/Conference Title

eLife

PubMed ID

27635635

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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