Cell type and cortex-specific RNA editing in single human neurons informs neuropsychiatric disorders

Abstract

ABSTRACT Conversion of adenosine to inosine in RNA by ADAR enzymes occurs at thousands of sites in the human transcriptome, and is essential for healthy brain development. This process, known as ‘RNA editing’, is dysregulated in many neuropsychiatric diseases, but is little understood at the level of individual neurons. We examined full-length nuclear transcriptomes of 3,055 neurons from six cortical regions of a neurotypical post-mortem female donor and identified 40,861 high-confidence edited sites. The majority of sites were located within Alu repeats in introns or 3’ UTRs, and were present in previously published RNA editing databases. We identified 15,784 putative novel RNA editing site..