Long-Read Transcriptome of Equine Bronchoalveolar Cells

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Transcriptomics
• Equine Respiratory Research

Background:

• Understanding the equine respiratory system is crucial for diagnosing and treating lung diseases.
• Existing genomic and transcriptomic data for equine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) cells are limited.
• High-throughput sequencing technologies offer opportunities to expand this knowledge base.

Purpose of the Study:

• To generate a high-quality, full-length transcript sequence dataset for equine BALF cells.
• To identify novel genes and transcripts within the equine BALF transcriptome.
• To provide a valuable transcriptomic resource for the scientific community.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Pacific Biosciences long-read isoform sequencing (PacBio Iso-Seq).
• Generated 313,563 HiFi reads, totaling 805 Mb of polished sequence data.
• Analyzed sequence data to identify and annotate full-length transcript isoforms.

Main Results:

• The equine BALF transcriptome comprised 14,234 full-length transcript isoforms from 7017 unique genes.
• Identified 137 novel genes and 3428 novel transcripts, including those absent from current annotations.
• Discovered fusion transcripts incorporating exons from multiple genes.

Conclusions:

• This study presents the most extensive equine BALF transcriptome to date.
• The identified novel genes and transcripts significantly expand our understanding of equine lung biology.
• The provided transcript-level data serves as a foundational resource for future equine respiratory research.