GSE210131
Attenuation of PTBP2 facilitates fibroblast to neuron conversion by promoting alternative splicing of neuronal genes
The direct conversion of human skin fibroblasts to neurons has a low efficiency and unclear mechanism. Here, we show that the knockdown of PTBP2 (nPTB) significantly enhanced the transdifferentiation induced by ASCL1, MiR124-9/9* and p53 shRNA to generate mostly GABAergic neurons. Longitudinal RNAseq analyses identified the continuous induction of many RNA Splicing Regulators (RSRs). Among these, the knockdown of RBFOX3, which encodes the mature neuronal marker NeuN, significantly abrogated the transdifferentiation. Overexpression of RBFOX3 significantly enhanced the conversion induced by AMp; the enhancement was occluded by PTBP2 knockdown. We found that PTBP2 attenuation significantly favored neuron-specific alternative splicing (AS) of many genes involved in synaptic transmission, signal transduction, and axon formation. RBFOX3 knockdown significantly reversed the effect, while RBFOX3 overexpression enhanced it. The study reveals the critical role of neuron-specific AS in the direct conversion of human skin fibroblasts to neurons by showing that PTBP2 attenuation enhances this mechanism in concert with RBFOX3. Overall design: Transcriptomic profiling of induced neurons mediated by ASCL1, miR124-9/9*, p53 shRNA and PTBP2 shRNA at day 3, 7, and 14 using human skin fibroblasts.