LINC24065 is a monoallelically expressed long intergenic noncoding RNA located in the cattle DLK1-DIO3 cluster

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are important regulators of biological processes, and regulate genomic imprinting in cis and/or trans to induce monoallelic expression with parent-origin-specific pattern. DLK1-DIO3 domain is one of the largest imprinted clusters in mammals, and maternally expressed noncoding RNAs of this region is related to the pluripotency of the embryonic stem cells. Previously, we sequenced the cDNA of two maternally expressed noncoding RNAs, MEG8 and MEG9, and mapped a lncRNA (LINC24061) between the two genes in the cattle DLK1-DIO3 domain on chromosome 21. In this study, we identified LINC24065, a novel long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA), which was also located between MEG8 and MEG9. We identified four variants of LINC24065 (LINC24065-v1, LINC24065-v2, LINC24065-v3 and LINC24065-v4) that were a result of alternative splicing from 18 exons. LINC24065-v1 and LINC24065-v2 showed tissue-specific expression patterns in adultbovine tissues, and LINC24065-v3 and LINC24065-v4 were detected in all eight analysed tissues (heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, skeletal muscle, adipose and brain). Using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based method, LINC24065 was identified to have monoallelic expression in adult tissues, suggesting that it is imprinted in cows. These results provide a foundation for further investigation about whether LINC24065 plays a role in regulating imprinting of the DLK1-DIO3 domain.