The Inosinome Atlas – profiling RNA editing in human tissues

Adenine to Inosine RNA editing is a widespread co- and post-transcriptional mechanism mediated by ADAR enzymes acting on double stranded RNA. It has a plethora of biological effects, appears to be particularly pervasive in humans with respect to other mammals, and is implicated in a number of diverse human pathologies.

Here, researchers at the University of Bari, Italy present the first human inosinome atlas comprising 3,041,422 A-to-I events identified in six tissues from three healthy individuals. Matched directional total-RNA-Seq and whole genome sequence datasets were generated and analysed within a dedicated computational framework, also capable of detecting hyper-edited reads. Inosinome profiles are tissue specific and edited gene sets consistently show enrichment of genes involved in neurological disorders and cancer. Overall frequency of editing also varies, but is strongly correlated with ADAR expression levels.

Whole human genome is shown as a circle in which we report for each chromosome and tissue RNA editing levels in gray bars. Tissues are shown in concentric circles and ordered as follow from the outside: BRAIN, LUNG, KIDNEY, LIVER, HEART and MUSCLE. Red bars indicate tissue specific RNA editing levels. The image was generated by Circos tool.

Availability – The inosinome database is available at: http://srv00.ibbe.cnr.it/editing/