TY - JOUR T1 - Pervasive allele-specific regulation on RNA decay in hybrid mice JF - Life Science Alliance JO - Life Sci. Alliance DO - 10.26508/lsa.201800052 VL - 1 IS - 2 SP - e201800052 AU - Wei Sun AU - Qingsong Gao AU - Bernhard Schaefke AU - Yuhui Hu AU - Wei Chen Y1 - 2018/05/01 UR - https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/1/2/e201800052.abstract N2 - Cellular RNA abundance is determined by both RNA transcription and decay. Therefore, change in RNA abundance, which can drive phenotypic diversity between different species, could arise from genetic variants affecting either process. However, previous studies in the evolution of RNA expression have been largely focused on transcription. Here, to globally investigate the effects of cis-regulatory divergence on RNA decay in mammals for the first time, we quantified allele-specific differences in RNA decay rates (ASD) in an F1 hybrid mouse. Out of 8,815 genes with sufficient data, we identified 621 genes exhibiting significant cis-divergence. Systematic analysis of these genes revealed that the genetic variants affecting microRNA binding and RNA secondary structures contribute to the observed divergences. Finally, we demonstrated that although the divergences in RNA abundance were predominantly determined by allelic differences in RNA transcription, most genes with significant ASD did not exhibit significant difference in RNA abundance. For these genes, the apparently compensatory effect between the allelic differences in RNA transcription and ASD suggests that changes in RNA decay could serve as important means to stabilize RNA abundances during mammalian evolution. ER -