Single nuclei RNA-sequencing of frontal cortex of a pig model of Angelman syndrome
Angelman syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by the loss of the maternal allele of the ubiquitin-protein ligase E3A (UBE3A) gene.  UBE3A is imprinted with maternal-allelic expression in neurons of the central nervous syndrome (CNS) and biallelically expressed in other cell types.  Consequently, in Angelman syndrome, UBE3A is absent in CNS neurons and reduced by half in other cells.   It is unclear how cell type-specific gene expression in the brain is dysregulated in Angelman syndrome.  Using single nuclei RNA-sequencing, we show that gene expression is dysregulated in neuronal subtypes in the frontal cortex of neonatal pigs with a UBE3A maternal deletion.  A total of 3,812 unique genes were dysregulated across ten cell-type clusters, with most of the dysregulated genes (3,154 genes) in excitatory neurons. Overall design: Study design compares wildtype animals to UBE3A materal deletion animals. Replicates of four animals were used for each genotype and used in snRNA-sq.