RNA-seq identified a super-long intergenic transcript functioning in adipogenesis

RNA transcripts are generally classified into polyA-plus and polyA-minus subgroups due to the presence or absence of a polyA tail at the 3' end. Even though a number of physiologically and pathologically important polyA-minus RNAs have been recently identified, a systematic analysis of the expression and function of these transcripts in adipogenesis is still elusive. To study the potential function of the polyA-minus RNAs in adipogenesis, a dynamic expressional profiling was performed in the induced differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells. In addition to identifying thousands of novel intergenic transcripts, differentiation-synchronized expression was characterized for many of them. Among these, several large intergenic transcripts were found to be upregulated by more than 19-fold during differentiation. Further study demonstrated a fat tissue-specific expression pattern for these regions and identified an adipogenesis-associated long non-coding RNA. Collectively, these lines of evidence contribute to the characterization of a super-long intergenic transcript functioning in adipogenesis.