Integrative analyses of RNA editing,alternative splicing,and expression of young genes in human brain transcriptome by deep RNA sequencing

Next-generation RNA sequencing has been successfully used for identification of transcript assembly,evaluation of gene expression levels,and detection of post-transcriptional modifications.Despite these large-scale studies,additional comprehensive RNA-seq data from different subregions of the human brain are required to fully evaluate the evolutionary patterns experienced by the human brain transcriptome.Here,we provide a total of 6.5 billion RNA-seq reads fromdifferent subregions of the human brain.A significant correlation was observed between the levels of alternative splicing and RNA editing,which might be explained by a competition between the molecularmachineries responsible for the splicing and editing of RNA.Younghuman protein-coding genesdemonstrate biased expression to the neocortical and non-neocortical regions during evolution on the lineage leading to humans.Wealso found that a significantly greater number of young human protein-coding genes are expressed in the putamen,a tissue that was also observed to have the highest level of RNA-editing activity.The putamen,which previously received little attention,plays an important role in cognitive ability,and our data suggest a potential contribution of the putamen to human evolution.